Screen-printable silver pastes with metallic nano-zinc and nano-zinc alloys for crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells.

Silver metallization pastes for crystalline silicon PV cells containing nanosized metallic zinc were found to be superior to commercial pastes containing micrometer-sized metallic zinc and micrometer sized zinc oxide in terms of efficiency and firing window. Efficiency performance decreases as the size of the particles increases: nano-Zn > 3.6 μm Zn > 4.