Advanced dry processes for low cost, thin multicrystalline silicon solar cell technology- (ADVOCATE)

This project focuses on significant cost reduction of crystalline silicon solar cells by developing fully dry, environmentally friendly multi-Si cell fabrication processes.The proposed novel, unconventional cell fabrication technology is capable to:(1) process large area, thin (down to 100 microns) and fragile silicon wafers with a high throughput and a low breakage rate on automated production lines with reduced or without manual water handling operations,(2)use of all types of low cost crystalline silicon substrates: standard multi-Si,EMC multi-Si, all types of silicon ribbons,(3) remove all wet chemical and water rinsing processing steps,(4) reduce the health risk in the production,(5)reach cell efficiency > 16% on ultra thin wafers.The project is aiming at the mid-term cost reduction of the multicrystalline solar cells down to 1 Eur/Wp. Cell process will be executed by two processing techniques: screen printing and plasma.