Rheology and Screen-Printing Performance of Model Silver Pastes for Metallization of Si-Solar Cells

Further strong growth of solar energy conversion based on PV (photovoltaic) technology requires constant improvement to increase solar cell efficiency. The challenge in front-side metallization of Si-solar cells is to print uniform fine lines with a high aspect ratio to achieve higher efficiencies simultaneously with a reduced consumption of raw materials. An in-depth understanding of the relationship between paste composition, rheology and screen-printed line morphology is essential. Three model pastes with similar silver content and corresponding vehicles differing in their thixotropic agent content were investigated. Rheological properties (yield stress, viscosity, wall slip velocity, structural recovery, and fracture strain) were determined using steady and oscillatory shear, as well as elongational flow rheometry. Pastes were screen-printed at various speeds through a layout screen including line widths between 20 and 55 µm. Dried fingers were analyzed with respect to line width, aspect ratio (AR) and cross-sectional area. Our investigations reveal that minor changes of thixotropic agent result in substantial variations of the paste’s flow properties. However, this only weakly affects the line morphology. Irrespective of printing speed or finger opening, AR is slightly increasing; i.e., the screen-printing process is robust against changes in paste rheology.