4/5/2012 12:21:42 PM

Future Photovoltaics: PVMC Tackles c-Si Metrology Challenges

Future Photovoltaics

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The crystalline silicon (c-Si) activities of the U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC), headquartered in New York, have gone through a Pareto exercise with 38 separate organizations from the industry, national labs and academia to identify and prioritize the critical challenges in c-Si metrology. These challenges are organized into four different production areas: feedstock and wafer production; cell production; module production; and cross-cutting, i.e, multiple production areas. Identifying the most significant c-Si metrology hurdles is the first step in initializing collaborative R&D consortium projects that will spur U.S. industry progress in c-Si metrology solutions.

The U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) is a partnership led by SEMATECH and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany. PVMC is an industry led consortium for cooperative R&D among industry, university and government partners to accelerate the development, commercialization and manufacturing of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.