Plating is an emergent cost-effective metallization technology for depositing solar cell metal contacts. Plated contacts, however, typically plate in-homogeneously where fingers plate higher than busbars and solar cell edges plate particularly higher. The impact of these systematic inhomogeneities on solar cell efficiency and total plated mass is not yet well understood. To generate plating distributions, this work proposes a purely resistive plating simulation approach, employing the solar cell simulator Quokka3, which is validated by reproducing a variety of experimentally observed inhomogeneities. A simulation pipeline is then used to show the impact of initial grid and tool design on plated height distributions, as well as their impact on solar cell efficiency and total plated mass. As such, simulation shows that large-scale inhomogeneities, i.e., increased plating toward cell edges, can be avoided by adjusting the design of the anode and bath and/or reducing the cell-to-cell distance in an inline plating tool. Furthermore, results suggest that finger height inhomogeneity does not significantly reduce the maximum achievable cell efficiency, whereas it can significantly lower the plated mass required to reach that efficiency. This implies that systematic finger height inhomogeneities typical for plating could be acceptable if not beneficial for the dollar-per-watt tradeoff between cell efficiency and total deposited mass.

中文翻译：

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c-Si 太阳能电池电镀触点的不均匀性及其对太阳能电池效率的影响

电镀是一种新兴的低成本金属化技术，用于沉积太阳能电池金属触点。然而，电镀触点通常不均匀地电镀，其中指状电镀高于母线并且太阳能电池边缘电镀特别高。这些系统不均匀性对太阳能电池效率和总电镀质量的影响尚不清楚。为了生成电镀分布，这项工作提出了一种纯电阻电镀模拟方法，采用太阳能电池模拟器 Quokka3，该方法通过再现各种实验观察到的不均匀性进行了验证。然后使用模拟管道来显示初始网格和工具设计对镀层高度分布的影响，以及它们对太阳能电池效率和总镀层质量的影响。因此，模拟表明大规模的不均匀性，即。例如，可以通过调整阳极和电解液的设计和/或减少在线电镀工具中的电池间距离来避免增加向电池边缘的电镀。此外，结果表明，手指高度的不均匀性不会显着降低可实现的最大电池效率，而它会显着降低达到该效率所需的镀层质量。这意味着如果不利于电池效率和总沉积质量之间的美元每瓦权衡，电镀典型的系统手指高度不均匀性是可以接受的。结果表明，手指高度的不均匀性不会显着降低可实现的最大电池效率，但会显着降低达到该效率所需的镀层质量。这意味着如果不利于电池效率和总沉积质量之间的美元每瓦权衡，电镀典型的系统手指高度不均匀性是可以接受的。结果表明，手指高度的不均匀性不会显着降低可实现的最大电池效率，但会显着降低达到该效率所需的镀层质量。这意味着如果不利于电池效率和总沉积质量之间的美元每瓦权衡，电镀典型的系统手指高度不均匀性是可以接受的。