• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2017

Thin crystalline silicon (C-Si) solar cell is expected to be a low price energy source by decreasing the consumption of Si. However, thin c-Si solar cell entails the bowing and crack issues in high temperature manufacturing process. Thus, the conventional tabbing process, based on high temperature soldering (> $250^{\circ}C$), has difficulties for applying to thin c-Si solar cell modules. In this paper, a conductive paste (CP) based interconnection process has been proposed to fabricate thin c-Si solar cell modules with high production yield, instead of existing soldering materials. To optimize the process condition for CP based interconnection, we compared the performance and stability of modules fabricated under various lamination temperature (120, 150, and $175^{\circ}C$). The power from CP based module is similar to that with conventional tabbing process, as modules are fabricated. However, the output of CP based module laminated at $120^{\circ}C$ decreases significantly (14.1% for Damp heat and 6.1% for thermal cycle) in harsh condition, while the output drops only in 3% in the samples process at $150^{\circ}C$, $175^{\circ}C$. The peel test indicates that the unstable performance of sample laminated at $120^{\circ}C$ is attributed to weak adhesion strength (1.7 N) between cell and ribbon compared to other cases (2.7 N). As a result, optimized lamination temperature for CP based module process is $150^{\circ}C$, considering stability and energy consumption during the fabrication.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 2018

Environmentally benign lead-free solder coated ribbon (e. g. SnCu, SnZn, SnBi${\cdots}$) has been intensively studied to interconnect cells without lead mixed ribbon (e. g. SnPb) in the crystalline silicon(c-Si) photovoltaic modules. However, high melting point (> $200^{\circ}C$) of non-lead based solder provokes increased thermo-mechanical stress during its soldering process, which causes early degradation of PV module with it. Hence, we proposed low-temperature conductive paste (CP) based tabbing method for lead-free ribbon. Modules, interconnected by the lead-free solder (SnCu) employing CP approach, exhibits similar output without increased resistivity losses at initial condition, in comparison with traditional high temperature soldering method. Moreover, 400 cycles (2,000 hour) of thermal cycle test reveals that the module integrated by CP approach withstands thermo-mechanical stress. Furthermore, this approach guarantees strong mechanical adhesion (peel strength of ~ 2 N) between cell and lead-free ribbons. Therefore, the CP based tabbing process for lead free ribbons enables to interconnect cells in c-Si PV module, without deteriorating its performance.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.59-63
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• 2016

A key point of a soldering process for photovoltaic (PV) modules is to increase an adhesive strength leading a low resistivity between ribbon and cell. In this study, we intended to optimize a heating condition for the soldering process and characterize the soldered joint via physical and chemical analysis methods. For the purpose, the heating conditions were adjusted by IR lamp power, heating time and hot plate temperature for preheating a cell. Since then the peel test for the ribbon and cell was conducted, consequently the peel strength data shows that there is some optimum soldering condition. In here, we observed that the peel strength was modified by increasing the heating condition. Such a soldering property is affected by a various factors of which the soldered joint, flux and bus bar of the cell are changed on the heating condition. Therefore, we tried to reveal causes determining the soldering property through analyzing the soldered interface.