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Perovskite silicon tandem cells are a core route for the next generation of photovoltaic efficiency improvement. Inkjet printing, with its advantages of digital additive manufacturing, low-temperature film formation, and high material utilization, is widely recognized as one of the most industrially promising solution-based preparation processes.
However, moving from small lab samples to large-area mass production faces a series of long-standing challenges that hold back production line deployment: droplet stability, texture conformal film formation, the coffee-ring effect, strong polar solvent corrosion, and out-of-control crystallization timing.
Inkjet Printing: A Preferred Digital Process for Perovskite Tandems
Unlike traditional routes such as spin coating, thermal evaporation, and slot-die coating, inkjet printing is a typical digital on-demand deposition process. It can fabricate functional layers of the battery layer by layer, including the electron transport layer, perovskite light-absorbing layer, hole transport layer, and conductive electrode, and is compatible with tandem architecture development:
1. Non-contact patterned deposition
The printhead has zero contact with the substrate, avoiding damage to fragile functional films; digitally defined droplet landing points enable flexible fabrication of sub-cells, tandem devices, and semi-transparent BIPV devices without masks, reducing material waste at the source.
2. Significantly improved material utilization
Ink is precisely deposited only in target areas, greatly reducing the consumption of high-value consumables such as HTL and precious metal conductive pastes, and compressing the material cost of tandem cells.
3. Compatible with large-area and flexible routes
Room-temperature/low-temperature processes are compatible with glass silicon substrates and PET/PEN flexible substrates, and can connect to roll-to-roll continuous production lines, supporting high-throughput production of large-size modules.
4. Integrated multi-layer stacked printing
Supports multi-head parallel operation and simultaneous printing of different functional layer inks, enabling continuous formation of multi-layer heterojunctions, eliminating separate ink changes and separate processing steps, and optimizing the tandem cell manufacturing process.
5. Flexible and adjustable ink system
The software side can be equipped with differentiated parameter libraries to help R&D teams adjust precursor concentration, solvent ratio, and additive schemes, continuously optimizing film morphology and crystallization quality.
Source: Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Schematic diagram of perovskite/silicon tandem cells. Source: Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Inkjet printing opens a new direction for perovskite tandems, yet the process barriers at the mass-production end cannot be underestimated.
Strong polar precursor solvents such as DMF and DMSO are highly corrosive and easily cause aging and clogging of printheads and ink paths; picoliter droplet consistency is poor, with satellite droplets and landing position deviation; after large-area stitching, film thickness is uneven, with coffee rings and suspended bridge pinholes in pyramid textured structures; printing, drying, and annealing crystallization timing are not synchronized, leading to out-of-control PL uniformity across the entire sheet.
The bottleneck of perovskite inkjet printing has never been just the printhead; it is the coordinated control capability of the entire system.
Hosonsoft | Building a Full-Stack Inkjet Printing Control Platform for Perovskite Processes
Hosonsoft full-stack control solution for perovskite tandem inkjet printing integrates "boards + inkjet control + visual positioning + core components (ink path system, industrial PC, etc.)" to provide an underlying control foundation for the experimental lines and pilot lines of leading photovoltaic enterprises, accelerating the mass-production introduction of perovskite tandem inkjet processes:
1、Control End
Solvent-Resistant Closed-Loop Ink Path + Intelligent Waveform Regulation
Aiming at the strong corrosive characteristics of perovskite precursor liquids, we provide a highly robust solvent-resistant ink path control solution, realizing full-link closed-loop management of ink supply, circulation, negative pressure, and cleaning, and reducing the risks of corrosion, precipitation, and nozzle clogging;
Self-developed multi-head synchronous calibration and multi-level grayscale waveform engine stably output picoliter droplets, with droplet volume CV controllable within 3%, ensuring baseline film thickness consistency.
Process Software End
Crystallization Kinetics + Inkjet Printing
Unlike general-purpose inkjet software, Hosonsoft incorporates solvent evaporation kinetics, printhead rheology window matching, and wet-film pre-crystallization timing into the printing control logic. It supports millisecond-level timing triggering and multi-segment free waveform editing, cooperates with customer process schemes to suppress the coffee-ring effect, and improves large-area film formation uniformity;
For different material systems of ETL, perovskite active layer, HTL, and electrode layer, it provides independent waveform libraries, ink path parameters, and printing beat templates, greatly shortening formula debugging cycles.
Four Mass-Production Pillars Directly Addressing Core Perovskite Inkjet Bottlenecks
01
Stable picoliter droplet output and adjustable multi-level grayscale, with droplet volume coefficient of variation strictly controlled at <3%, providing underlying assurance for film thickness stability of perovskite functional layers.
02
Multi-head stitching calibration, intelligent path planning, and real-time closed-loop ink volume compensation support printing of large-area perovskite films at the 210×105 mm² level, helping customers converge PL mapping standard deviation, solve stitching band and local thickness difference problems, and adapt to conformal printing on silicon textures.
03
Equipped with corrosion-resistant selection schemes, automatic circulation, segmented cleaning, and standing anti-precipitation strategies, it adapts to long-term continuous production with DMF/DMSO strong polar inks, improves equipment utilization, and reduces printhead loss.
04
Connects the timing linkage of printing, drying, and annealing crystallization, with unified millisecond-level triggering at the software level to achieve micro-zone synchronous nucleation, reduce grain differences, pinholes, and cracks, and make process reproducibility controllable and traceable.
From R&D to Mass Production, a Complete Product Matrix Continuously Delivered
Hosonsoft has now formed a perovskite inkjet control product matrix covering R&D verification and mass-production introduction:
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Compatible with rigid glass, silicon wafers, flexible films, and other substrates; material systems cover perovskite active layers, SAMs/NiOₓ/PEDOT:PSS hole transport layers, PCBM/SnO₂ electron transport layers, silver nanowire/carbon nanotube conductive electrodes, etc.
In addition to the perovskite tandem solution, Hosonsoft also provides other high-precision inkjet printing capabilities for photovoltaic production lines: BC cell insulation coating printing and cell traceability code inkjet printing control, achieving stable output of high-clarity, high-readability barcodes, and providing one-stop service for the digital upgrade of photovoltaic manufacturing processes.
The industrialization of perovskite tandems is a coordinated battle among materials, processes, and control. With full-stack inkjet printing control and process software capabilities, Hosonsoft makes inkjet printing a reliable route for mass production of perovskite tandems!
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