MENU

Kerfless wafer mass production promises cheaper solar cells

Kerfless wafer mass production promises cheaper solar cells

Technology News |
By eeNews Europe



NexWafe plans to transfer the kerfless wafer technology to the photovoltaics mass markets. Kerflesss wafer has been developed over the past fifteen years as a drop-in replacement for conventional wafers which are produced in a single-crystal ingot and wire sawing process. The NexWafe founder and CEO is Stefan Reber, who formerly oversaw the department of Crystalline Silicon Materials and Thin Film Solar Cells at Fraunhofer ISE. Reber has developed a reliable epitaxial deposition process for crystalline silicon layers. The process can be transferred to the PV industry, promising significant cost benefits for the production of solar cells.

The process focus in on atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition (APCVD) at very high temperatures – up to 1300 degree celsius. The process is already well established and commonplace in microelectronics manufacturing, but adapting them to the needs of PV production was not a trivial matter. The NexWafe team of some 30 experts developed several new generations of deposition reactors, ranging from flexible batch-type lab setups to large multi-chamber in-line systems capable of continuously depositing p- and n-doped epitaxial layers. This series of developments culminated in what the company calls ProConCVD, designed for industrial throughput requirements and generating high-quality solar cells at low cost.

More information: www.nexwafe.com
www.ise.fraunhofer.de

If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :    eeNews on Google News

Share:

Linked Articles
10s