Contact Resistance Determination For Multi-crystalline Silicon Solar Cells By Using Transmission Line Method (TLM)

Abstract

he main objective in solar cells realization consists in increasing their performances. The mechanisms of this increase obey specific phenomena of physics. There is necessarily a contact resistance value behind each value of conversion efficiency. The question is how to quantify the contact resistance and what is its behaviour with different temperature profiles and consequently with the conversion efficiency. This work responds to all of these questions. We have taken square multicrystalline silicon wafers of 10 cm sides. These wafers have followed the traditional process steps i.e.: chemistry, diffusion, silicon nitride PECVD deposition and metallization of the front grid with TLM (Transmission Line Method) mask. The TLM measures are obtained using a test bench which includes a four-point prober and an analyzer. The contact resistance is deduced by the plot of the resistance versus the TLM line distance. It represents the R(D2), R(D3), R(D23), R(D4) and R(D34) where D2, D3, D23, D4 and D34 are the TLM distances. The TLM resistance is the half of the intersection of the slope R(D) with the y-axis. A profile of the evolution of the contact resistance versus the screen printing temperature annealing from 650°C to 800°C for the multi-crystalline silicon solar cells has been obtained.