Investigation of contact resistance between silicon and silver paste made by screen-printing

In this paper, the front contact resistance of screen-printing crystalline silicon solar cells was investigated. By establishing a fine model for silicon and silver paste contact made by screen-printing and fire-through, the three kinds of conduction mechanism were analyzed quantitatively. According to the model, the comprehensive calculation of the contact resistance between silicon and silver paste sintering was made for the first time. The results calculated in this study suggest that the contact resistance of silicon and silver paste is about 1.20 mΩ for 125 mm × 125 mm single crystalline silicon solar cells, this approximately agrees with the measured values. By optimizing composition of silver paste according to our results, the silver consumption per watt can be reduced, and the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells can be further improved. The results laid the foundation for studying the screen-printed crystalline silicon solar cell front contact metallization system.