Environmental Testing of Single-Crystal Silicon Solar Cells with Screen-Printed Silver Contacts

This paper presents the results of five different environmental tests conducted on solar cells with screen-printed contacts. Different stress levels are indicated in the results, and conclusions about the witnessed degradation relative to glass content and cell processing are drawn. Two of the five tests the thermal cycles with and without humidity proved ineffective. The remaining tests thermal shock, pressure cooker, and high temperature/humidity tests - gave valuable insight into the failure mechanism. Thick-film contacts appear to be as durable as evaporated contacts. Field data are not available for correlation of results with either failure rate or lifetime.