Co-ordinator
Dr. Stefan Gall
Dr. Stefan Gall
Tel (030) 8062 - 41346 Fax (030) 8062 - 41333 mail Email Business card Business card



 

The European Commission Project METEOR

Metal-Induced Crystallisation and Epitaxial Deposition for Thin, Efficient and Low-Cost Crystalline Si Solar Cells

From January 2002 to June 2005, the Hahn-Meitner Institut, Dep. Silicon Photovoltaics, was the co-ordinator of the European Commission project METEOR (ENK5-CT-2001-00543).




The project followed two different concepts:

  1. a low temperature approach using glass substrates and
  2. a high temperature approach using heat resistant substrates (mullite ceramic, high-temperature glass).

The project was divided into four sections:

  1. PPreparation of a seed layer by metal-induced crystallisation (MIC). In this study we focused on the aluminium-amorphous silicon system, however, other metals were also considered.
  2. These large-grained poly-Si films were used as seed layers for Si homoepitaxy by electron-cyclotron resonance chemical vapour deposition (ECRCVD, low temperature approach) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD, high temperature approach).
  3. Efficient solar cells were processed using layers obtained with the proposed methods. An effective low-temperature emitter formation technique was developed and implemented in both roads.
  4. Sub-cell isolation and series connection were addressed and were expected to lead to the demonstration of a mini-module.

Throughout the project, advanced material characterization techniques were applied to provide appropriate feedback to the experimental efforts.