Fraunhofer ISE recently confirmed that Kaneka and imec’s six-inch, semi-square, heterojunction silicon solar cell has a certified power conversion efficiency of 22.68%. The solar cell has an electroplated copper contact grid on top of a transparent oxide layer, which essentially replaces the traditional silver screen printing and is said to lead to higher efficiencies with lower manufacturing costs.
The silicon solar cell was developed at Kaneka’s Osaka lab using its copper electroplating technology, which is based on imec’s copper electroplating background.
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Jef Poortmans, director of PV technologies at imec, commented, “We are excited that we could support Kaneka in developing this breakthrough results. They prove the capabilities of copper metallization for next-generation solar cells and strengthen our believe that in the future copper will play an important role in high efficiency and sustainable solar cell technology.”