The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) has announced a partnership with EV Group (EVG) to develop equipment and process technology to enable electrically conductive and optically transparent direct wafer bonds at room temperature.
The Germany-based research institute says direct-wafer bonding provides the ability to combine a variety of materials with optimal properties for integration into multi-junction solar cells. The new manufacturing processes are intended to enable mismatched material combinations like gallium arsenide (GaAs) on silicon, GaAs on indium phosphide (InP), InP on germanium (Ge) and GaAs on gallium antimonide (GaSb).
The research institute expects direct-wafer bonding to play an important role in the development of next-generation III-V solar cell devices with applications in space, as well as in terrestrial concentrator photovoltaics.
