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Cold Spray Deposition of Copper Electrodes on Silicon and Glass Substrates

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Abstract

Copper lines with widths varying from 150 to 1500 μm were deposited onto crystalline silicon wafers and soda-lime glass plates by cold spraying copper particles with 1 μm average diameter through a mask. This direct deposition method yielded high-aspect-ratio electrodes with minimum shadowing effects and maximum electrode-to-silicon contact area. The copper lines had triangular cross sections with aspect ratios (height/width) ranging from 0.1 to 1.1, depending on the number of spray gun passes. Copper particles were densely packed with increasing the width of the masking slit. This study presents the potential use of the cold spray technology in printing lines as front electrodes in solar cell applications.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Human Resources Development of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP, No. 20104010100640), and the Converging Research Center Program through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2010K000969).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 136-713, Korea

    Do-Yeon Kim, Jung-Jae Park, Jong-Gun Lee & Sam S. Yoon

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 136-713, Korea

    Donghwan Kim & Sung Ju Tark

  3. Photovoltaic Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research, 71-2 Jang-Dong, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon, 305-343, Korea

    Sejin Ahn, Jae Ho Yun, Jihye Gwak & Kyung Hoon Yoon

  4. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Sanjeev Chandra

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  1. Do-Yeon Kim
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Correspondence to Sam S. Yoon.

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Kim, DY., Park, JJ., Lee, JG. et al. Cold Spray Deposition of Copper Electrodes on Silicon and Glass Substrates. J Therm Spray Tech 22, 1092–1102 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-013-9953-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11666-013-9953-4

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