Solliance, imec form thin-film photovoltaics R&D partnership

Leuven, Belgium--Nanoelectronics research institute imec will integrate its thin-film photovoltaic research and development (R&D) efforts in Solliance, a solar research firm.

Solliance works in close cooperation with industry, both to fulfill short-term needs of industry and to convey promising programs of mid- and long-term research. It focuses on thin-film Si, alternatives for CIGS, and organic photovoltaics (OPV). For these principal themes, Solliance will collaborate with the industry at its facilities in Eindhoven as well as at imec’s facilities in Leuven, providing direct answers to the industry’s most pressing questions. Solliance also concentrates on generic technologies that will be vital to any thin-film PV industry: testing, characterization and monitoring, laser technologies, light management by mechanical texturization, transparent conductive layers, monolithic interconnection, new OPV device development, thin-film deposition techniques, sheet-to-sheet processing, roll-to-roll (R2R) processing, and in-line monitoring.

Imec joins Solliance as its fifth member, taking their research from fundamentals of materials science to sophisticated production technologies, says Hein Willems, Solliance’s managing director. Imec specifically excels in nanoelectronics, and harbors CIGS-related and OPV research teams of significant volume and expertise. It will now continue its thin-film R&D within the Solliance cooperation.

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