NOVELTY - The direct printing, preferably inkjet printing, of a precursor composition is carried out on a substrate. The precursor composition comprises metallic nanoparticles comprising a metal. The precursor composition is heated, to form a solar cell conductive component on the substrate. The conductive component has a minimum component size of 200 microns or less.    USE - For forming conductive component of solar cell. Also the precursor composition is used in fabrication of microelectronic components such as multi-chip module, and electrodes, bus lines and barrier ribs for plasma display panel, thin film electroluminescent display and field emission display, antenna for cellular telephone, and other electronic devices such as electronic display, electrochromic display, electrophoretic display, light-emitting polymer-based display, and LCD of passive-matrix type, active-matrix type, twisted nematic type, super twisted nematic (STN) type, double STN type, retardation film STN type, ferroelectric type, guest-host type, polymer-dispersed type and polymer network type, portable computer, pager, and internet-compatible devices such as personal organizer and web-enabled cellular phone, desktop publishing and color photocopier. Also for use in coupon redemption, inventory security, currency security, compact disk security, driver's license, passport security, and security of credit card, automated teller machine (ATM) card and other tracking cards with magnetic strips as a security measure. Also the precursor composition is used to interconnect substrate-mounted electrical elements such as transistor e.g. thin film transistor (TFT) and organic field effect transistor (OFET), emissive pixels such as electroluminescent pixel, plasma display pixel, field emission display (FED) pixel and organic LED pixel, non-emissive pixels such as reflective pixel, photovoltaic element and sensors such as humidity sensor. Also for use in direct printing of electrical connectors and antenna of smart tag, smart label, security label and livestock tag, and identification devices such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tag.    ADVANTAGE - The solar-cell conductive component of favorable electrical and mechanical property is economically manufactured.