Photovoltaics
Silicon solar cells
Imec is developing solar cells using ever thinner silicon wafers, thus reducing the cost of the resulting solar cells.
Our focus is on solar cell technologies using very thin silicon substrates (< 200µm down to 50µm) and advanced backside-contacs. We also implement industrial cell techniques for epitaxial thin-film crystalline Si solar cells and innovative approaches for thin-film polycrystalline Si solar cells. All these approaches aim at reducing the cost of crystalline Si solar cells by at least a factor of 4.
To produce the ultra-thin foils of silicon, imec is deveoping some innovative methods. One such method is to peel thin slices of silicon from a thick wafer. And another approach is to form a thin film of active silicon on top of a low-cost substrate. These films are grown epitaxially, deposited, or transferred from a parent substrate.