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 a DSC panel with a total sealed area of 1638 cm2 and active area of 990 cm2. The panel comprises 90 DSCs individual glass sealed cells (140 mm x 13 mm) arranged in 10 sub modules (150 mm x 150 mm) Indoor aging of individual sub modules in dark and at ambient temperature for 100 days showed rather small decrease of the photocurrent conversion efficiency: 1.23 10 4 day 1. The DSC panel was tested under outdoor working conditions during 47 days in summer time (Porto, Portugal) where the average day illumination level was about 6 kW h m 2. 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 glass frit were detected. Glass sealed DSCs performed superior stability under 1000 h of ageing in a climatic chamber when compared to polymer sealed cells. The results show that the laser assisted sealing can be applied to large area DSC modules.