Advanced yield strength of interconnector ribbon for photovoltaic module using crystallographic texture control

Abstract

This paper reports a study on reducing the yield strength of Cu ribbon wire used for Si solar cell interconnections in solar panels. Low yield strength Cu core should be used as the interconnector ribbon to minimize the fracture of Si solar cells during the tabbing process. We lowered the yield strength of Cu ribbon by controlling the crystallographic texture without increasing the annealing time and temperature. The crystallographic texture was controlled by lubrication in a cold rolling process. The crystallographic texture was observed by scanning electron microscopy with electron back scattered diffraction. A tensile test was performed for the comparison of the mechanical properties of Cu with and without lubrication. The average yield strength was 91.2 MPa with lubrication whereas the yield strength was 99.6 MPa without lubrication. The lower value of the lubricated samples seemed to be caused by the higher cube texture intensity than that of the samples without lubrication.