News Article
Amtech Systems enters R&D agreement with Energy research centre
Amtech Systems, Inc. announced that the Company has entered into a research agreement with the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands ("ECN").
There are three objectives of the agreement: (1) To explore processes that may make it practical to use N-type wafers in the production of solar cells, thereby significantly increasing the total amount of usable silicon available to the solar industry. Currently, the solar cell industry predominately uses P-type silicon wafers and generally does not utilise N-type wafers. (2) To evaluate the Company's existing phosphorous doping process and develop new phosphorous doping processes for solar cells with a high-ohmic emitter, thereby improving the efficiency of the resulting solar cells. (3) To explore additional processes that may further improve efficiency of solar cells produced with P-type wafers. The Company will provide a Tempress Systems diffusion furnace for use during the term of the agreement. ECN will use its solar cell production facilities to produce finished solar cells using Amtech and ECN developed processes and test those cells for any improvement in energy-converting efficiency. J.S. Whang, President and Chief Executive Officer of Amtech Systems, Inc. said, " I am very excited to be teaming up with one of the world's premiere solar cell research centres to improve and expand the number of processes we can deliver to the solar cell industry along with our diffusion furnaces. Separately, I am pleased to announce that we have a patent pending on a pressure-controlled phosphorous doping process we have developed, which improves the uniformity of the phosphorous layer used in the production of both solar cells and semiconductors."
