TY - JOUR
T1 - Controllable Simultaneous Bifacial Cu-Plating for High-Efficiency Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
AU - Han, Can
AU - Yang, Guangtao
AU - Procel, Paul
AU - O'Connor, Daragh
AU - Zhao, Yifeng
AU - Gopalakrishnan, Anirudh
AU - Zhang, Xiaodan
AU - Zeman, Miro
AU - Mazzarella, Luana
AU - Isabella, Olindo
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Bifacial (BF) copper-plated crystalline silicon solar cell is an attractive topic to concurrently reduce silver consumption and maintain good device performance. However, it is still challenging to realize a high aspect ratio (AR) of the metal fingers. Herein, a new type of hybrid-shaped Cu finger is electromagnetically fabricated in a BF plating process. Cyclic voltammetry is employed to disclose the electrochemical behaviors of cupric ions in monofacial and simultaneous BF Cu-plating processes, such that the controllability of the plating process could be assessed. The optimal hybrid Cu finger is composed of a rectangular bottom part and a round top part, such that an utmost effective AR value of 1.73 is reached. In BF Cu-plating, two sub-three-electrode electrochemical cells are employed to realize equal metal finger heights on both sides of the wafer. Compared to our low thermal-budget screen-printing metallization, the Cu-plated silicon heterojunction devices show both optical and electrical advantages (based on lab-scale tests). The champion BF Cu-plated device shows a front-side efficiency of 22.1% and a bifaciality factor of 0.99.
AB - Bifacial (BF) copper-plated crystalline silicon solar cell is an attractive topic to concurrently reduce silver consumption and maintain good device performance. However, it is still challenging to realize a high aspect ratio (AR) of the metal fingers. Herein, a new type of hybrid-shaped Cu finger is electromagnetically fabricated in a BF plating process. Cyclic voltammetry is employed to disclose the electrochemical behaviors of cupric ions in monofacial and simultaneous BF Cu-plating processes, such that the controllability of the plating process could be assessed. The optimal hybrid Cu finger is composed of a rectangular bottom part and a round top part, such that an utmost effective AR value of 1.73 is reached. In BF Cu-plating, two sub-three-electrode electrochemical cells are employed to realize equal metal finger heights on both sides of the wafer. Compared to our low thermal-budget screen-printing metallization, the Cu-plated silicon heterojunction devices show both optical and electrical advantages (based on lab-scale tests). The champion BF Cu-plated device shows a front-side efficiency of 22.1% and a bifaciality factor of 0.99.
KW - bifacial silicon heterojunction solar cells
KW - Cu-plating
KW - finger shapes
KW - simultaneous electroplating
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125103209&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/solr.202100810
DO - 10.1002/solr.202100810
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125103209
SN - 2367-198X
VL - 6
JO - Solar RRL
JF - Solar RRL
IS - 6
M1 - 2100810
ER -