Optomec has received significant orders for its Aerosol Jet Solar Lab system, which was introduced earlier this year. The Solar Lab is a process development platform that lets customers define and develop improved collector line patterns for current and next generation high-efficiency solar cells by printing much finer collector lines than is presently possible with traditional screen-printing methods.
The more narrow and high integrity collector lines have higher conductivity and a lower shadowing effect, which increases PV cell efficiency. The non-contact deposition process from Aerosol Jet is aimed at printing on thinner wafers and the system is commonly used as an antecedent before going to full production Aerosol Jet print line solution that is offered in partnership with Manz Automation.
Dave Ramahi, Optomec’s President and CEO, stated, “We are pleased that several prominent solar cell manufacturers have embraced our Aerosol Jet printing technology as a means of improving current cell efficiencies and costs, and as an enabling solution for next generation cell architectures. We are also encouraged that we are starting to see applications and interest from the Thin-Film and Flexible segments of the industry. We expect the demand for our Solar Lab product and the follow-on production print engines to continue to grow.”
