Natcore Technology declared that it has commenced the work on the prototype production model of its new liquid phase deposition (LPD) processing station designed to develop an antireflective (AR) coating over silicon wafers during the course of their turning into solar cells.
The company has licensed the new technology from Rice University and trusts that the new technology will change the way solar cells are produced currently.
The new liquid phase deposition (LPD) technology of the company utilizes a wet chemistry procedure. It develops the AR coating in a temperate chemical tub eliminating the need for silane, considerably lessens the energy needs and notably reduces the use of silicon. The technology is different from the currently followed costly chemical deposition (CVD) expertise that needs a high-level temperature vacuum chamber, extremely toxic and inflammable silane and other such deadly chemicals and silicon platters of adequate thickness to endure the high temperature of the chambers. The new LPD technology allows the manufacture of solar cells cost-efficiently and more eco-friendly than the conventional methods.
The new device of Natcore is manufactured at a 15,000 sqft production facility of MicroTech systems in Fremont, CA. The intelligent process control of MicroTech will be integrated with the LPD technology of Natcore in a wet manufacturing platform. The LPD process station, an enclosed type of production facility incorporates a pre-clean subsystem to clean the wafers before moving them into the LPD process. The system incorporates a monitoring facility to supervise the coating process in all the stages and will utilize the spectrometer-based expertise of MicroTech to accurately measure the thickness of the AR coating over a wafer when it is immersed in a chemical bath. It has the feature to change the mix of the chemical utilized and the duration of the bath to produce the cells if needed with utmost accuracy.
The production is planned in two phases. The first phase will develop a system measuring 8 ft. x 6 ft. x 6 ft manually to assist the scientists at Natcore to improve the coating process in consultation with the engineers from MicroTech and the process will take around 8 to 10 weeks. The final manufacturing system will have 20 ft. x 6 ft. x 8 ft. high measurement. The independent modular system is designed to reprocess its own wastes and will produce around 3,000 AR coated wafers in an hour.