Natcore Technology declared that it has commenced the work in preparing the first production model of its liquid phase deposition (LPD) processing station for developing an antireflective coating on silicon wafers for solar cell production.
Natcore firmly believes that incorporating the new technology from Rice University in its equipment can transform the solar cells manufacturing process. The LPD, also known as wet chemistry process, develops the antireflective coating in a warm chemical bath and removes the need for silane, thus considerably lessening energy requirement and lowering the use of silicon. The solar cells thus obtained are low-cost and eco-friendly than conventional chemical vapor deposition manufacturing process.
The device will be manufactured at a 15,000 square foot manufacturing facility owned by MicroTech Systems and located in Fremont, California. The intelligent process control technology of MicroTech will be incorporated with the LPD technology in a wet process platform.
The intelligent LPD process station is a fully enclosed type of system that incorporates a pre-clean subsystem for cleaning the wafer before introducing it to the LPD process subsystem. The latest drying module from MicroTech permits only low level metallic pollution to improve the solar performance. The MicroTech's spectrometer-based technology will be incorporated in the Natcore device to precisely measure the thickness level of the antireflective coating over the wafer and alter the process if needed to maintain a high level of accuracy.
The final production model is anticipated to measure around 20x6x8 ft. The independent modular unit is designed to reprocess its effluents and manufacture 3,000 antireflective coated wafers per hour.
Source: http://www.natcoresolar.com/