A shingled PV module is manufactured by dividing and bonding. In this method, the solar cell is divided by lasers and bonded using electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs). Consequently, the manufacturing cost increases because a process step is added. Therefore, we aim to reduce the production cost by reducing the amount of Ag paste used in the solar cell front. Various electrode structures were designed and simulated. The number of fingers was optimized by designing thinner fingers, and the number of fingers with the maximum power conversion efficiency was confirmed. The simulation confirmed the maximum efficiency in the 4-divided electrode pattern. The amount of Ag paste used for each electrode pattern was calculated and analyzed. The number of fingers was optimized by decreasing the width of the finger; this will not only reduce the amount of Ag paste required but also the increase the efficiency.

We researched about a bulk metallic glass system as an additive to an Ag paste for high temperature thermoelectric modules. Bulk metallic glass (BMG) ribbons were produced by using a rapid solidification process (RSP) under a cooling rate condition higher than 10℃/sec. We investigated BMG characteristics of the ribbons by means of x-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in order to evaluate the glass transition temperature (Tg) and the recrystallization temperature (Tx) lower than 400℃. A milling process was also developed to apply the BMG ribbons to a commercial Al paste as an additive for lower sintering temperature.

Ag paste has been used in the front electrode of the Si-solar cell. It is composed by Ag powder, glass frit, binder, solvent and dispersant. The role of the binder and the solvent is to make a flow and a printing property. However, it was not enough to report the printing properties with the variation of binder in the controled viscosity. In this study, we selected 3 kinds of typical binder which were used as binder for the paste in the industry, such as Ethyl cellulose, Hydroxypropyl cellulose and Acrylic. Ag pastes using these were prepared, controled viscosity and printed on the SiNx coated Si wafer. In the ‘A paste’ used Acrylicbinder, printed hight was highest and ‘H paste’ used Hydroxypropyl cellulose binder was lowest. Because ‘Hpaste’ was high viscosity due to the molecular weight, the solvent was added in the paste to control the viscosity. Therefore, the content of solid was lower in ‘H paste’. The relative pattern width which is related to the spreading of paste was the best in the case of ‘H paste’ and ’EH paste’ at 30℃. It is thought that the optimization of the relative pattern width is possible for a paste by the controling shear thinning phenomenon. In the case of ‘A paste’, though printing hight was best, the pattern width was dependant on the temperature.