**5.1. Process complexity**

To realize Ni/Cu metal contact for solar cell applications, a number of processing steps are required. Steps such as ARC opening, Ni deposition/sintering and Cu electroplating are required. These steps make the process more complex and difficult to implement in mass production. To realize such a metallization scheme on the industrial scale, the processing steps need to be minimized. The use of lasers for depositing a Ni seed layer could help to decrease these processing steps to some extent by combining ARC ablation and the Ni deposition process [45]. The conventional electroless plating techniques might be replaced with lightassisted electroless plating for faster and uniform plating. At IMEC, a simple copper metalli‐ zation process with higher cell efficiencies and a reliable module was presented [95].
