Previously, IMEC proposed the i 2-module concept which allows to process silicon heterojunction interdigitated back-contact (SHJ-IBC) cells on thin (<50 µm) Si wafers at module level. This concept includes the bonding of the thin wafer early on to the module cover glass, which delivers mechanical support to the wafer and thus significantly improves the production yield. In this work, we test silicone and EVA bonding agents and prove them to be resistant to all rear side processes, including wet and plasma processes. Moreover, a lift-off process using a sacrificial SiOx layer has been developed for emitter patterning to replace conventional lithography. The optimized process steps are demonstrated by the fabrication of SHJ-IBC cells on 6-inch 190 µm-thick wafers. Efficiencies up to 22.6% have been achieved on reference freestanding wafers. Excellent Voc of 734 mv and Jsc of 40.8 mA/cm 2 lead to an efficiency of 21.7% on silicone-bonded cells, where the high Voc indicates the process compatibility of the bonding agent. The developments that enabled such achievements and the key factors that limit the device performance are discussed in this paper.
This paper proposes a novel model to attain high birefringence and low loss in a slotted core-based photonic crystal fiber (PCF) structure in THz regime. The performance of the proposed PCF has been evaluated by applying finite element method (FEM) with full simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics V-5.1. The proposed model gains good optical properties such as high birefringence of 0.24, low effective material loss (EML) of 0.03 cm[Formula: see text], low confinement loss of 6.5 × 10[Formula: see text] (dB/m), low scattering loss of 2 × 10[Formula: see text] (dB/m) and low bending loss of 7.4 × 10[Formula: see text] (dB/cm). The proposed structure also exhibits the flattened dispersion for wider frequency response. However, the real-life fabrication of the suggested model is highly feasible using the current technology due to the unique shape of circular air holes in the cladding region. The outcomes make the proposed PCF a stronger candidate for polarization-preserving applications such as sensing, communications and filtering operations in THz band.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.