String Printing: Manufacturing High Performance Triangular Front Contacts

We present a novel method to fabricate high performance contacts for solar cells. This method, called string printing, enables the fabrication of microscale, high aspect ratio front contacts for solar cells using inks or pastes and offers high flexibility with respect to contact dimension, aspect ratio, and shape. The process can be optimized to yield triangular cross-section effectively transparent contacts (ETCs). We will present the fabrication method, different string printer prototypes and printed structures on different types of substrates and solar cells.