Copper-Based Volumetric Filler Dedicated for Ag Paste for Depositing the Front Electrodes by Printing on Solar Si Cells

In this work we present research results on a new paste NPCuXX (where: NP—new paste, CuXX—component, XX—a modifier consisting of Ni and other important elements) based on a copper composite (CuXX) for fabrication of front electrodes in silicon solar cells. The CuXX composite is obtained by chemical processing of copper powder particles and can be used in two ways: as an additive to commercially available paste or as a base material for a new paste, NPCuXX. The CuXX offers the possibility to exchange up to 30 and 50 wt.% Ag into Cu, which significantly decreases the solar cells material costs, and therefore, the overall solar cell price. Emphasis was placed on a proper mass suitable fabrication process of the CuXX component. The NPCuXX paste has been applied both to conventional cell structures such as aluminum-back surface field (Al-BSF) and passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC), and finally solar cells with front electrodes deposited by screen-printing method were fabricated and characterized by current-voltage techniques. This paper reports the first implementation of the copper volumetric material into a screen print paste used in a high-temperature metallization process to fabricate the front contacts of Si solar cells with a highest fill factor of 77.92 and 77.69% for the abovementioned structures, respectively.