SBIR Phase I: Nano-textured Light Management Layers Fabricated by a Roll-to-Roll (R2R) Nanoimprint Manufacturing Process - Significant Impacts to The Solar Photovoltaic Industry

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发和商业化创新的光管理薄膜，这将提高效率，降低制造成本，并有利于晶圆和薄膜晶体硅（c-Si）太阳能光伏（PV）电池的整体部署经济。这些薄膜将通过可扩展的卷对卷纳米压印生产工艺，由廉价材料制成。这些薄膜的设计目的是在相对较低的温度下，简单地应用于光伏制造设施中接近标准的光伏电池。这些光管理薄膜将结合光捕获和抗反射特性来提高电池效率，同时降低成本，低于现有技术。这项技术将显著降低光伏组件在几个光伏制造部门的单位功率成本（$/W），并将随着晶体硅太阳能电池厚度的减少而在未来几年增加价值。该项目的广泛影响/商业潜力将有利于晶圆和薄膜晶硅（c-Si）太阳能光伏电池的整体部署经济，因此有利于目前90%的太阳能光伏市场。这种方法具有重大的近期影响，因为它首先解决了当前PV和mc-Si技术中最大、最成熟的领域之一，这将转化为每年大幅降低成本的影响。由于所提出的技术是添加到接近完成的单元，它很容易以低成本集成到现有的工艺流程中。从中期来看，这种方法甚至具有更强的促进作用。随着晶圆不断变薄，光捕获对于保持模块效率在竞争水平上变得越来越重要，从而严重影响薄晶圆和薄膜c-Si技术的出现和采用。这种方法对这些技术尤其重要，因为它是添加剂，并且已经很薄的晶圆或薄膜没有材料损失。需要注意的是，提高模块效率可以降低跨系统级安装的系统平衡成本，从而节省其他成本。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop and commercialize innovative light management films that will improve the efficiencies, reduce manufacturing costs, and benefit the overall deployment economics of wafer- and film crystalline-silicon (c-Si) solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. These films will be created from inexpensive materials by a scalable roll-to-roll nanoimprint production process. These films are designed to be applied simply to near-standard PV cells in the PV manufacturing facility, at relatively low temperatures. These light management films will combine light-trapping and anti-reflection properties to increase cell efficiencies, while reducing costs below those of existing technologies. This technology will significantly reduce the cost per unit power ($/W) of photovoltaic modules in several PV manufacturing sectors, and will increase in value as the thickness of crystal silicon solar cells decreases over the coming years.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will benefit the overall deployment economics of wafer- and film crystalline-silicon (c-Si) solar photovoltaic cells, therefore benefit the 90% of the current solar PV market. This approach has significant near-term impact because it first addresses one of the largest, mature segments of current PV and mc-Si technology, which will translate to substantial annual cost reduction impact. Because the proposed technology is additive to the nearly-finished cell, it easily integrates within existing process flow at low cost. In the mid-term, the approach has even stronger, enabling impact. As the wafers continue to get thinner, the light trapping becomes increasingly important to keep the module efficiencies at a competitive level thus critically affecting the emergence and adoption of the thin-wafer and film c-Si technologies. The approach is especially critical to those technologies because it is additive and there is no material loss of the already thin wafer or film. It is important to note that increasing module efficiency has the benefit of lowering Balance-of-System costs across system-level installations and thus will create other cost savings.