The Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing Towards the Performance of Screen-Printed Si Solar Cell

Problem statement: Solar cells are used to capture the photons which generate the energy. However the efficiency of the cells to turn the amount of photon to electricity needs to be high and so the cells enhancement is needed. This involved the whole process of the developing of the cells, thus annealing process is one of the important steps that needs to be optimised. Approach: Only Si solar cells will be discussed and the processes involved would be metal contact screen printing and metal paste co-firing. The contacts were first screen printed with Al paste for the rear side and Ag paste for the front side of the cell. Cells are then fired in the annealing furnace using selected temperature profile. Few sets of temperature profiles were used in every cycle. Results: After the IV characteristics were measured such as Voc, Isc, Pmax and fill factor, it shows that when higher annealing temperature of the profile was used, all the parameter will increase accordingly. However, profile with the highest annealing temperature will burn the paste as it will decrease the quality of the cell. This is considered as over heat to the paste. Conclusion: So by optimising the thermal treatment of the annealing process does improve the performance of the Si solar cell.