Developing Screen-Printing Processes for Silver Electrodes Towards All-Solution Coating Processes for Solar Cells

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Renewable Energy Engineering
• Photovoltaics

Background:

• Third-generation solar cells show increasing efficiency, presenting a promising renewable energy source.
• Current high-efficiency solar cells often utilize thermal evaporation for top electrodes, a costly and energy-intensive vacuum process unsuitable for mass production.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a cost-effective, scalable method for fabricating solar cell electrodes using screen printing.
• To achieve comparable device efficiencies to thermal evaporation using an all-solution coating process.

Main Methods:

• Screen printing of silver electrodes with optimized blocking layers.
• Near-infrared (NIR) annealing for rapid curing of silver ink.
• Sheet-to-sheet (S2S) slot-die coating for device area scaling.
• Application to organic photovoltaics (OPVs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs).

Main Results:

• Screen-printed silver electrodes achieved efficiencies comparable to thermally evaporated electrodes in OPVs.
• NIR annealing reduced silver ink curing time from 30 minutes to 5 seconds.
• Successfully scaled up device area using S2S slot-die coating and verified module stability in ambient air.

Conclusions:

• Screen printing provides a viable, low-cost alternative for fabricating high-performance solar cell electrodes.
• The developed NIR annealing and S2S coating methods enable efficient, scalable production.
• The technology is applicable to both organic photovoltaics and perovskite solar cells, broadening its impact.