Investigation of Ni Silicide formation at Ni/Cu/Ag Contact for Low Cost of High Efficiency Solar Cell

고효율 태양전지의 저가화를 위한 Ni/Cu/Ag 전극의 Ni Silicide 형성에 관한 연구

It is significant technique to increase competitiveness that solar cells have a high energy conversion efficiency and cost effectiveness. When making high efficiency crystalline Si solar cells, evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is widely used in order to reduce the electrical resistance of the contact fingers. However, the evaporation process is no applicable to mass production because high vacuum is needed. Furthermore, those metals are too expensive to be applied for terrestrial applications. Ni/Cu/Ag contact system of silicon solar cells offers a relatively inexpensive method of making electrical contact. Ni silicide formation is one of the indispensable techniques for Ni/Cu/Ag contact sytem. Ni was electroless plated on the front grid pattern, After Ni electroless plating, the cells were annealed by RTP(Rapid Thermal Process). Ni silicide(NiSi) has certain advantages over Ti silicide($TiSi_2$), lower temperature anneal, one step anneal, low resistivity, low silicon consumption, low film stress, absence of reaction between the annealing ambient. Ni/Cu/Ag metallization scheme is an important process in the direction of cost reduction for solar cells of high efficiency. In this article we shall report an investigation of rapid thermal silicidation of nickel on silngle crystalline silicon wafers in the annealing range of $350-390^{\circ}C$. The samples annealed at temperatures from 350 to $390^{\circ}C$ have been analyzed by SEM(Scanning Electron Microscopy).