After a year of collaboration with materials specialists Cabot, DuPont Microcircuit Materials, Heraeus and Five Star Technologies, ‘Aerosol Jet’ printing equipment supplier, Optomec now has the optimized source material and supply for offering a front-side metallization solution, designed to increase c-Si solar cell efficiencies.
The print material has been optimized for etching through the Silicon Nitride layer and meets series resistance requirements. The printing step is followed by a plating process to build up the conductivity of the collector lines.
The company said that further enhancement work was on-going with the seed and plate process as well as a fully printed front-side metallization solution that included a multi-material capability. This would enable cell manufacturers to optimize contact resistance and conductivity parameters separately.
“We are pleased that leading and emerging material suppliers have partnered with Optomec to fully enable the benefits of the Aerosol Jet process for solar cell applications,” commented Dave Ramahi, President and CEO of Optomec. “This will allow our customers to readily implement the Aerosol Jet solution for printing front-side collector lines and to meet emerging backside metallization requirements.”
Optemec claims that its Aerosol Jet print system is capable of printing front-side collector lines with a width of 40 microns or less while operating at production speeds of up to 2400 wafers per hour.
