The new copper composite of pastes for Si solar cells front electrode application

In this paper we present a new composite (CuXX) of pastes for formation electrodes in crystalline silicon solar cells. The CuXX composite is obtained by chemical processing of copper particles and added to commercially available paste used for front electrode deposition on Si solar cell. The CuXX offers a possibility to exchange over 50 wt. % Ag into Cu, which significantly decreases the material cost and therefore overall solar cell price. Solar cells with 50% wt. share of Cu as front electrode pastes were fabricated. The cells were characterized by current-voltage and spectral response techniques. Despite the non-optimized fabrication process, Cz-Si based solar cells with an efficiency approaching 14% were obtained. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.