TY - JOUR A1 - Meyer, S. A1 - Timmel, S. A1 - Richter, S. A1 - Werner, M. A1 - Gläser, M. A1 - Swatek, S. A1 - Braun, Ulrike A1 - Hagendorf, C. T1 - Silver nanoparticles cause snail trails in photovoltaic modules JF - Solar energy materials & solar cells N2 - After some months of operation, a number of PV modules develop a discolouration defect called 'snail trails', or 'snail traces', which appear as irregular dark stripes across the cells. Whereas these traces were soon identified as discoloured silver contacts along the cell edges or at micro cracks, the chemical and mechanistic reasons for this phenomenon have not yet been resolved in detail. In this work we show that silver nanoparticles accumulating within the encapsulation foil cause the brownish discolouration, and that certain additives of encapsulation and back sheet foils trigger the formation of these nanoparticles. KW - Snail trails KW - Cell cracks KW - Encapsulation foil KW - Ag contact finger KW - Nanoparticles PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2013.11.013 SN - 0927-0248 VL - 121 SP - 171 EP - 175 PB - Elsevier B.V. CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-30059 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -