Natcore Technology has secured delivery of its AR-Box, a SUV-sized intelligent processing station that employs a special liquid phase deposition (LPD) process to develop antireflective coatings on silicon wafers, which serve as critical components of solar cells.
The AR-Box is being commissioned at Natcore Technology’s Research & Development Center located at Eastman Business Park in Rochester, New York. Deployment and testing are expected to be completed by September 9 2011.
AR-BOX
The completely enclosed system, AR-Box comprises a drying module, an LPD process subsystem integrating newest sizing and process control input of Natcore Technology. It can detect and remove unnecessary invisible particles to ensure consistency and uniformity. Its heating and cooling option maintains the chemical bath within a temperature range of ±0.5° C.
The AR-Box also features a module to passivate the ‘black silicon’ solar cell surface. Passivation will decrease the average reflectivity of the cell to below 1.5%, which in turn will considerably augment its power output. Its capability to monitor the entire coating process is its critical feature. Particularly, it will precisely measure the AR coating’s thickness on a wafer during its submergence in a chemical bath and can modify the duration and composition of the chemical bath to fabricate solar cells easily and accurately.
Natcore Technology expects that the AR-Box will reform the solar cell production methods by utilizing its LPD process instead of adverse and expensive chemical vapor deposition process, which is the existing industry standard. Solar cells manufactured by the intelligent processing station will be inexpensive and eco-friendly compared to traditional solar cells.