Understanding the uniqueness of the inkjet metallization of multicrystalline silicon solar cell

Multicrystalline silicon solar cells with average efficiency of 17.4%, using only 74 mg of silver, are reported in this paper. The uniqueness of the digital inkjet metallization include: creation of precise gridlines (width of 47 mu m and height of 45 mu m) and ability to control the amount of Ag paste dispense per wafer. Because of the precision of each gridline width and height, the front gridline shading was lower than the screen-printed counterpart, which also used > 120 mg of Ag. A combination of multicrystalline substrate and less amount of silver used in conjunction with > 19% can lead to a lower S/W solar cell. (C) 2015 The Japan Society of Applied Physics