Altatech partners with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to develop next-gen cell technology

French semiconductor production system provider Altatech Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Soitec SA, and German research center Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) have launched a collaborative partnership to research and develop materials for the next generation of high-efficiency solar cells, including new classes of materials and innovative device structures for PV and photocatalysis applications. As part of the organizations’ joint effort, Altatech will install a new single-substrate multi-chamber solution, an AltaCVD system, at HZB’s newly constructed Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory (EMIL) at the synchrotron light source BESSY II facility in Berlin and will work with the institute to investigate new materials-deposition processes, functional interfaces and device structures for solar energy conversion and storage.
Altatech’s new AltaCVD system will be used in HZB’s EMIL lab to deposit amorphous silicon, transparent conductive oxides and ultra-thin dielectrics used in fabricating next-generation solar energy devices. The partner organizations will conduct atomic-layer deposition, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition on substrates ranging from small research samples up to fully industry-compatible six-inch wafers, and they will use EMIL’s analytical capabilities to analyze material and interface properties in between successive processing steps.
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