FlexTrail Printing as Direct Metallization with Low Silver Consumption for Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: Evaluation of Solar Cell and Module Performance

FlexTrail printing has been invented and developed for (fine-line) of various fluids, e.g., particle-based metal-containing etchants, liquid-phase pyrophoric media. Compared to other techniques, is highly independent the fluids’ viscosity. Using this approach, feature sizes 10 μm below are reached. This work utilizes as a direct metallization method silver-nanoparticle-based front electrodes on busbarless silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. Thereby, only (9.4 ± 0.9) mg silver consumed grid, which exhibits 80 contact fingers 156 mm in length. means reduction more than 60% compared screen printing. Solar cells with M2+ wafer size FlexTrail-printed grids reach conversion efficiencies up (22.87 0.01)%, similar screen-printed reference To further demonstrate practicability beyond cell level, SHJ processed into 200 × mm-sized one-cell module applying SmartWire Connection Technology interconnection. maximum power (5.0 0.1) W, underlining great potential high-power devices significant reduction.