Understanding and Use of IR Belt Furnace for Rapid Thermal Firing of Screen-Printed Contacts to Si Solar Cells

Author

Cooper, Ian B. ; Ebong, Abasifreke ; Renshaw, John S. ; Reedy, Robert ; Al-Jassim, Mowafak ; Rohatgi, Ajeet

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

Volume

31

Issue

5

fYear

2010

fDate

5/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

461

Lastpage

463

Abstract

We have simulated the rapid thermal firing process using a high-throughput conveyor belt furnace to study the physics of solar cell contact formation in mass production. We show that as sinter dwell time decreases, a lower Ag finger contact resistance is observed. Scanning electron micrographs reveal a correlation between glass thickness at the Ag/Si finger interface and Ag finger contact resistance. Secondary ion mass spectrometry shows that glass-frit and Ag emitter penetration are controlled by sinter dwell time. The observed trends in contact formation lead to lower series resistance, higher fill factors, and greater efficiencies with rapid firing.

Keywords

contact resistance; solar cells; IR belt furnace; contact resistance; glass thickness; high throughput conveyor belt furnace; ion mass spectrometry; mass production; rapid thermal firing process; scanning electron micrographs; screen-printed contacts; sinter dwell time; solar cell contact formation; Contacts; photovoltaic cell metallization; silicon;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2010.2044363

Filename

5443503