Advanced Compound Semiconductor and Silicon Fabrication Techniques for Next-Generation Solar Power Systems

Microsystem technologies have the potential to significantly improve the performance, reduce the cost, and extend the capabilities of solar power systems. These benefits are possible due to a number of significant beneficial scaling effects within solar cells, modules, and systems that are manifested as the size of solar cells decrease to the sub-millimeter range. To exploit these benefits, we are using advanced fabrication techniques to create solar cells from a variety of compound semiconductors and silicon that have lateral dimensions of 250 - 1000 µm and are 1 - 20 µm thick. These fabrication techniques come out of relatively mature microsystem technologies such as integrated circuits (IC) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) which provide added supply chain and scale-up benefits compared to even incumbent PV technologies.