Ultra-thin Solar Cells Made Through Exfoliation Are Cheaper and Lighter

Researchers, from the California Institute of Technology and EMCORE PhotoVoltaics, led by James Zahler from Aonex Technologies, created a new technology for producing solar cells by replacing the thick semiconductor substrate that is currently used in creating these devices with a thin “wafer-bonded” substrate.

The new exfoliation process replaces the thick indium phosphide substrate with a very thin layer of the same material which is placed on top of an oxidized wafer of silicon, cheaper that the indium phosphide, thus cutting production costs in half.

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