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Exploiting the microelectronics toolbox to boost Si PV manufacturing

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By Jef Poortmans, Director, Department of Solar and Organic Technologies, IMEC; Kris Baert, R&D Project Manager, IMEC; Philip Pieters, Business Development Director of Energy, IMEC

To make solar energy cost effective, the photovoltaic (PV) industry has to reduce its manufacturing costs well below 1€/Wp. To reach this cost target, roadmaps for c-Si technology foresee a drastic reduction in the amount of high-purity Si used and an increase in solar cell efficiencies beyond 20%. But this requires advanced cell concepts that put more stringent requirements on process steps such as doping, cleaning and surface passivation. Several processes in the technology and analysis toolbox of microelectronics offer opportunities to meet these stringent requirements. In this paper, we give examples of recent progress in solar cell development that has been achieved by implementing CMOS-like process steps, and we discuss how these processes can be attuned to the needs and benefits of the solar industry.

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Our largest issue to date at 224 pages, the 13th edition of the Photovoltaics International journal features a focus on myriad topics including wafering and wire-sawing thermodynamics, the passivation benefits of ALD, reactive magnetron sputtering, PV module degradation and inverter certification. Contributors include imec, Fraunhofer IST, Motech Industries, PI Berlin, University of Toledo and CH2M HILL.

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