Effect of solid content on performance of conductive silver paste for crystalline silicon solar cells

Abstract The effect of solid content of conductive silver paste on the film thickness, microstructure of screen-printed front contact, and electrical performance of crystalline silicon solar cells was investigated. Three different solid content pastes were tested. It is found that the solid content of silver paste strongly affects the film thickness, microstructure of the thick film, and electrical performance of the cells. The paste with 84 wt.% solid content has higher viscosity and density than the ones with 82 wt.% and 83 wt.%. After sintering, the front Ag electrode thick film prepared using the paste with 84 wt.% solid content has a larger film thickness and the corresponding cell exhibits higher photoelectric conversion efficiency than the ones with 82 wt.% and 83 wt.% under the same conditions. This indicates that increasing film thickness can improve the conversion efficiency.