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centrotherm presents groundbreaking products and processes for the manufacturing of high-efficiency solar cells at the SNEC PV in Shanghai


· centrotherm c.REG regeneration furnace for the reduction of light
induced degradation (LID)
· PECVD process for aluminum oxide coating (AlOx)
· Low-pressure boron diffusion for bifacial n-type solar cells

Blaubeuren, April 27, 2015 – From April 28 to 30 centrotherm will be presenting new pioneering products and processes for the production of crystalline solar cells at the main Asian photovoltaic trade fair SNEC PV in Shanghai. These allow manufacturers the next step from the standard solar cell to the production of highly efficient PERC and n-type solar cells. The newly developed centrotherm products and processes can be optimally integrated into existing mass production and achieve cell efficiencies of more than 20%.

Newly developed regeneration furnace c.REG reduces significantly light induced degradation (LID)
After first exposure to light mono-crystalline p-type solar cells might suffer performance losses due to light induced degradation (LID). This effect is ascribed to recombination active boron oxygen (B-O) complexes in the wafer bulk that reduce conversion efficiency substantially.

To passivate B-O-defects centrotherm developed a regeneration process and corresponding equipment that is applied directly after fast firing, after sorting or even before module manufacturing. LID is significantly reduced with the belt furnace c.REG. A particularly efficient and quick regeneration can be achieved in connection with the direct plasma process of the centrotherm PECVD system c.PLASMA.

centrotherm aluminum oxide PECVD process for the manufacture of PERC solar cells
Many cell manufacturers are turning towards more complex cell architectures with higher efficiencies. Therefore, the next generation of crystalline solar cells requires a highly effective surface passivation of front and rear side of the wafer.

The newly developed centrotherm process for the rear side passivation by AlOx/SiNx stacked layers is characterized by excellent surface passivation properties. Furthermore, the centrotherm c.PLASMA PECVD system provides improved process flexibility for further dielectric layers (SiONx, SiOx, etc.) in both mono and multi solar processing.

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