Synthesis of Ag-coated Cu nano powder applied to the silver paste on front of the solar cell

The copper surface coated with a layer of silver is synthesized as silver paste. This powder, which is highly cost-effective and environment-friendly, can reduce the use of precious metals[1]. Nano Ag-coated Cu powder has been successfully fabricated via glucose pre-reduction — direct replacement. The product was characterized by means of X-ray fluorescence (XRF), scanning electron microscopy(SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS). The obtained nano Ag-coated Cu powder possesses a width of ca. 200 nm and a length of ca. 500 nm. The XRD and XPS patterns indicate that Cu is completely coated with Ag and the formation of Ag-coated Cu nanoparticles are in high quality. The formation mechanism of nano Ag-coated Cu powder is discussed. It can be therefore concluded that the obtained powder may lay the foundation for the silicon solar cells application.