The solar cell metallic contacts are decisive elements to get high and stable photovoltaic
performance. On the other hand, the necessary cost reduction leads to the replacement of
monocrystalline semiconductor
by a multicrystalline one, and the evaporated contact by
the screen printing technique; this last has the
advantage of being inexpensive and easy to use. In this work, we have
developed a methodology to characterize the
screen printed contacts on multicrystalline silicon solar cells. These
contact parameters are given by the TLM
(Transmission Line Model) technique. This study constitutes in extending
this model for multicrystalline silicon by
the use of an average method. It is experimentally and analytically
compared to a standard average technique. In
this paper, we show that TLM measurements can be adapted, with a good accuracy, to characterize the screen
printed contacts on multicrystalline silicon solar cells; thirty six TLM patterns are sufficient to get this.