Laser assisted glass frit sealing for production large area DSCs panels

Abstract

For the first time laser assisted sealing using lead-free glass frit was successfully applied for producing aDSC panel with a total sealed area of 1638 cm2 and active area of 990 cm2. The panel comprises 90 DSCsindividual glass sealed cells (140 mm 13 mm) arranged in 10 sub-modules (150 mm 150 mm).Indoor aging of individual sub-modules in dark and at ambient temperature for 100 days showed rathersmall decrease of the photocurrent conversion efficiency: 1.23 104 day1. The DSC panel was testedunder outdoor working conditions during 47 days in summer time (Porto, Portugal), where the averageday illumination level was about 6 kW h m2. After 47 days of continuous power production the assembled panel kept 86% of the initial efficiency. No leakage of electrolyte or visual defects in the sealed glassfrit were detected. Glass sealed DSCs performed superior stability under 1000 h of ageing in a climaticchamber when compared to polymer sealed cells. The results show that the laser assisted sealing canbe applied to large area DSC modules.