Non-contact printing of high aspect ratio Ag electrodes for polycrystalline silicone solar cell with electrohydrodynamic jet printing

This paper presents a non-contact printing mechanism for high aspect ratio silver (Ag) electrodes fabricated by an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing technique. Using high viscosity Ag paste ink, we were able to fabricate narrow and high aspect ratio electrodes. We investigated the effect of the surface energy of the substrate and improved the aspect ratio of printed lines through multiple printing. We fabricated the polycrystalline silicone solar cell with the Ag electrode and achieved cell efficiency of around 13.7%. The EHD jet printing mechanism may be an alternative method for non-contact fabrication of solar cells electrodes. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4798332]