News

28 August 2009

 

Sunovia and EPIR complete closed space sublimation system

Sunovia Energy Technologies Inc of Sarasota, FL and its partner EPIR Technologies Inc of Bolingbrook, IL (in which Sunovia has a stake) have completed the design and construction of a closed space sublimation (CSS) system for fabricating polycrystalline cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cell devices.

“We now know that two-junction CdTe-on-silicon (CdTe/Si) devices can reach efficiencies comparable to those of three-junction III-V solar cells on the market today, so the fabrication of three-junction and inverted three-junction CdTe-based devices have the potential to achieve efficiencies greater than 50%,” says EPIR’s founder & CEO Dr Siva Sivananthan. “In addition, multi-junction CdTe-on-silicon photovoltaic devices can be manufactured at a fraction of the cost of the existing III-V solar cells,” he adds.

“Our technology combines high-quality, single-crystal CdTe with silicon substrates for high-efficiency, two- and three-junction solar cells,” Sivananthan continues. “We already have a baseline silicon solar cell fabrication process in-house that results in over 15% efficiency. Setting up the CSS now gives us the baseline CdTe process, which furthers our extensive understanding of II-VI materials and solar cells, and allows us to accelerate the commercialization of our CdTe/Si products,” he reckons.

“EPIR is well known in the field of infrared detectors and they are now using this expertise to develop a novel photovoltaic technology,” comments Dr Timothy Coutts, former fellow of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and founder of its Device Development Group. “This tool gives EPIR state-of-the-art research ability in polycrystalline CdTe in addition to its already industry-leading single-crystal CdTe-on-silicon epitaxial layer growth and device fabrication capabilities,” he adds. Deposition rates using CSS are very high compared to other thin-film deposition techniques, suiting high-volume manufacturing.

See related items:

Sunovia and EPIR expanding R&D and pilot manufacturing facility

Second DOE contract for Sunovia/EPIR targets IR detectors

DOE selects EPIR/Sunovia’s CdTe-on-Si PV technology

Sunovia and EPIR win $9m SBIR award from DoD

Sunovia finalizes $33m order for EPIR’s MWIR wafers

Search: Sunovia EPIR CdTe/Si

Visit: www.sunoviaenergy.com

Visit: www.epir.com