>0.4% Absolut Efficiency Gain by Fast Ni-Cu-Sn Electroplating of Solar Cells with Fine Line Printed Contacts by a Single Side Wet Treatment Technology

The front grid of screen printed solar cells strongly limits the efficiency in terms of shading and resistive losses. Main focus of this work was to provide an alternative two-step front contact process consisting of fine printing followed by an adapted plating stack of Ni/Cu/Sn. Results on improved fine line printing as well as a new plating technique will be presented for the first time. Optimized parameters for printing with newly developed techniques as well as adapted plating techniques will be shown. Solar cells using the new developed front metallization have been characterized and compared with standard screen printed solar cells. Efficiency gain of more than 0.4% has been achieved so far.