Description
Objective: The objective of the activity is to evaluate and develop coating techniques and assess their superiority compared to state-of-the-art techniques in several areas of the solar cell processing such as the application of the antireflective coating, front and backside metallisation and passivation layers (which becomes more and more important as solar cell designs become thinner).
Targeted Improvements: Performance increase for next generation solar cells. Reliability improvement. Simplified processes. Solar cellefficiency increase (in the order of 0.5%).
Description: The development of lighter and more powerful solar arrays requires the useof high efficiency solar cells. The performances and reliability of the next generation solar cells can be enhanced by the used of some coating materials. The production process of III/V-solar cells includes the deposition of dielectric films for antireflection coatings (ARC) and the coating with metal layers for front- and backside contacts. In the field of ARC, future cell concepts make itnecessary not only to reduce the reflection in the wavelength range from 250 to 900nm, but up to 1800nm.
To obtain such a broadband ARC, dielectric materials with special demands on refractive index and transmission need to be deposited. This requires new materialsthat have to be deposited on top of each other and at the same time potentially requires a dedicated coating technique since the state-of-the-art might not work anymore. Also for surface and edge passivation of the solar cells which becomes more and more importantwhen solar cells become thinner (and which is the current trend to develop lighter solar array) dedicated materials need to be found and correspondingly optimized coating techniques.
Finally, new coating/deposition techniques may also offer a variety of alternative solutions for front and back side metallisation. Some coating techniques like the antireflective coating, front and back sidemetallisation, passivation layers, needed for thinner cells shall be evaluated and compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. Some materials systems and deposition techniques shall be proposed to improve the performances of solar cells.
A flight representativecoupon shall be designed, manufactured and tested to demonstrate the superiority of the new promising materials and new processes and to validate the expected performance improvements.
Procurement Policy: C(1) = Activity restricted to non-prime contractors (incl. SMEs). For additional information please go to EMITS news "Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes".