Electrolytic nickel deposition for the front side metallization of silicon solar cells

In this work the formation of a nickel seed layer for the front side metallization of silicon solar cells based on light induced plating (LIP) is presented. Nickel is plated from a Nickel Watts electrolyte. The influence of LIP parameters like the intensity of the incident light and the applied potential to the rear side of the solar cell has been investigated. After generating the nickel seed layer the contacts were thickened by a cyanide-free silver LIP step. First promising results were obtained producing industrial solar cells with a cell efficiency of 16.8 %