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Netsurfer

02/11/15 8:44 AM

#24387 RE: MattySR #24371

Hyperion's function is to cleave really thin slices of Silicon for solar cells. This process greatly increases the material usage yield by essentially eliminating the saw kerf you get with wire saws.
The down side is that it requires a complete retooling of the cell line as the Silicon sheets are so thin that they are hard to handle and have a very high loss due to breakage.
I do not believe that there is anyone doing this commercially and probably not even at the pilot plant stage yet.....still at he R & D lab experiment level I would guess.

The thin sheet need to be bonded to a carrier which is not the case with standard cells. Also the process of adding collector strips and buss bars is complicated. They may be some effort to integrate Merlin into Hyperion sliced cells but I have not seen anything on that.