Effect of surface morphology on screen printed solar cells

Surface texturing is well known as one of the major paths to improving the efficiency of silicon solar cells by increasing the short circuit current through effective photon trapping. However, the effects of the pyramids created after surface texturing on the other properties remain obscure. In this work, we studied the effect of the surface morphologies on the formation of both the emitter layer and metal electrode using the screen printing method, which is a cost-effective method of fabricating silicon solar cells. Various textured surfaces, such as with large, small, sharp or smooth pyramids, were investigated in comparison with a flat surface. The contact resistance was measured from a TLM patterned cell by I–V measurement under dark conditions and SEM, TEM and UV–vis spectrophotometer were used to evaluate the surfaces.