Scientists working in the Rochester R&D Center of Natcore Technology Inc. have developed a new solar cell structure that will simplify the production process, significantly lower costs, and speed the path toward ultra high-efficiency cells. Importantly, the new cell structure has the potential to completely eliminate high-cost silver from mass-manufactured silicon solar cells. The company's adaptation offers key advantages over previous SHJ cells: The new cell structure which can be achieved only through company's proprietary laser processing technology may allow for the complete elimination of silver from the finished silicon solar cell.

With silver contributing approximately 30% to the cost of a silicon solar cell, this achievement alone would slash production costs. The company's laser processing techniques allow for further simplification of the production process, projecting to a cost-per-watt far lower than any solar cells available. The company's early first-generation research cells using this new structure are already producing efficiencies near today's common commercial cells.

With better materials and further refinements that are in progress, the new cells show a clear technical path to efficiencies substantially greater than current commercial cells. The new cell structure opens the door to further cost savings and production simplification through a novel packaging approach that Natcore is also pursuing as part of its development program. Parallel to its commercialization efforts, the company will continue to refine and improve its SHJ cells at its lab facilities in the Eastman Business Park, and will also leverage its relationships with independent laboratories to improve its technology.

In addition, the company's scientists are currently working toward a second generation of its new structure that will employ no silver at all and thereby validate this very important advantage. The company's new cell is an all-back-contact heterojunction structure using thin amorphous silicon layers in combination with a standard crystalline silicon solar wafer. The cell could utilize a novel packaging approach in which a flex circuit is directly bonded to multiple, small contact pads by high-speed laser fusion.

This integrated approach has two major advantages. First, it eliminates front surface contacts, which are costly and block some incoming light. Secondly, the cell-to-module packaging can be accomplished with low-cost, alignment-tolerant bonding.