Conversion of commercial si solar cells to keep their efficient performance at 15 suns

The screen-printing method is an economical metallization technique used by most manufacturers of conventional silicon solar cells. This method limits the cells' use under concentrated light owing to high series resistance losses caused, among other reasons, by low metal density in the fingers. This paper describes increasing the finger metal density by electrolytic deposition. The electrolytic deposition of silver is an economical, controllable and readily commercializable deposition method to reduce the front and back metallization series resistance contributions. With an optimized grid design, compatible with 1 sun silicon cell technology, and later electrolytic silver deposition we have obtained cells that maintain their efficiency up to 15 suns. In addition, an analysis of the performance of these cells under uniform and non-uniform illumination were carried out on n+p and n+pn+ structures. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.