A Methodology to Account for the Finger Non-Uniformity in Photovoltaic Solar Cell

Abstract In this work we investigate the impact of a non-uniform finger in the front-side metallization on the performance of c-Si solar cells. For this purpose, we propose a methodology based on a mixed-mode simulation approach, which allows evaluating the solar cell properties by performing both numerical device simulations and circuit simulations. The finger roughness profile is modeled by means of Gaussian function. The impact of roughness on the solar cell efficiency is studied as a function of mean finger height, mean finger width and finger resistivity. The proposed methodology has been applied to typical roughness profiles realized with two different metallization techniques, the conventional single screen-printing (SP) and the double screen-printing (DP).