Silver/aluminum (Ag/Al) paste has been used as metallization for p emitter of n-type solar cells. Nevertheless, the Ag/Al paste induces junction current leakage or shunting in the solar cells, resulting loss in open circuit voltage (V oc ).
Silver paste is a key component in the production of silicon solar cells. The development of silicon solar cell technology has introduced new requirements and challenges for the front-side silver paste of solar cells.
Photovoltaic silver paste is applied to the surface of silicon solar cells through screen-printing, after which the paste is dried and sintered to form a grid electrode. Fig.1. Architecture of TOPCon solar cell on n-type monocrystalline silicon wafer.
Silver paste are usually apply for electrical contacts in silicon solar cells. The paste usually consists of three constituents: silver powder, organic vehicle, and glass frit.
Front silver paste amasses the power produced by the solar cell, while rear Ag paste transfers the collected power to a system. The paste play significant role on cell’s conversion efficiency and in the crystalline silicon solar cell’s performance-to-cost ratio. Some manufacturers use AI paste instead of Ag paste to save production cost.
We reached out to Andreas Liebheit, President of Heraeus Photovoltaics Global Business Unit and Rajaram Pai, Business Leader – South Asia, DuPont Electronics & Communications to under-stand the role of silver solar paste in enhancing solar power output.