Natcore Technology announced the opening ceremony of a research and development center at Eastman Business Park in Rochester, New York. The center has been constructed and fully equipped at a cost of approximately $1 million.
The facility will hasten the development of one of the most promising applications based on Natcore’s proprietary liquid phase deposition (LPD) technology. The present applications of the technology are flexible solar cells, tandem solar cells and black silicon solar cells. The flexible solar cells will decrease half the cost of solar energy production and the tandem cells will increase the power output of the high-efficiency commercial solar cells that are available now. In addition, the black silicon solar cells will generate a large amount of electricity than the standard solar cells.
Natcore’s R&D center includes a gowning room, a laboratory or clean room, a warehouse and administration offices. The clean room utilizes a series of filters and air pressure to prevent 90% of pollutants such as chemical vapors, aerosol particles, airborne microbes and dust from the external atmosphere. AR-Box, a smart LPD processing station, is the main part of the facility and the tool is used to apply an antireflective (AR) coating over the silicon wafers during the solar cell production process. The tool is considerably large in size and is fully automated for easy use.
Natcore had been performing the research work at the Ohio State University and Rice University. The work will now be shifted to the Rochester facility while continuing its funded collaborative research program with the Rice University’s Barron Group. New applications developed at Rice will be transferred to the new facility for development and commercialization.
Source: http://www.natcoresolar.com/