JULICH

Description of the organisation

Forschungszentrum Jülich is an interdisciplinary, publicly funded research centre with a staff of about 4.300 members working on the areas of health, energy and environment. One of the institutes at Jülich, the Institute for Energy and Climate research IEK, which is divided into several departments. One is the IEK-5 Photovoltaik.
The IEK5 – Photovoltaik belongs to the world leading research institutions in silicon thin-film photovoltaics. The IEK5 investigates the scientific basis and the technology for efficient and cost-effective solar modules made from silicon thin-films and related materials. We cover the entire spectrum from research and development of the materials science to process- and device design and, finally, to demonstration of industrially relevant production methods.

Main contact: Karsten Bittkau

+49 2461 61 1553

Role in the Project

JÜLICH will develop new laser processes and encapsulations for thin-film silicon module technology. The focus will be to develop cheap and stable modules. Furthermore, we will apply and develop nanoimprint technology to structure functional layers. Here, novel light-trapping concepts will become feasible in large scale thin-film modules. Scanning near-field optical microscopy will be provided for nanooptical characterization of thin-film solar cells. Here, the photocurrent generation will be investigated with a very high spatial resolution.

Key people involved

Dr. Jürgen Hüpkes graduated at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Energy- and Climate Research – Photovoltaics, IEK5, Germany in 2002 and received his Dr. rer. nat. degree at RWTH Aachen, Institute of Physics, Germany in 2006. In 2006, he took the leader ship of actually 13 people in the group of light scattering contacts in IEK5. Since 2002, Dr. Hüpkes has been involved in several publicly funded, national and European projects as well as bilateral industry cooperations.

Dr. Karsten Bittkau joined IEK5 in 2005 and is working in the field of optical experiments, especially Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy on randomly textured TCOs and thin-film silicon solar cells. He got his PhD from University of Hamburg in 2004 with a thesis on far-infrared spectroscopy on low-dimensional electron systems in semiconductors with quantum confinement structures. In 2011, he became head of the research group Optics at IEK5.

Matthias Meier received the Diploma degree in electrical engineering from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree from the Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, in 2009. During his PhD thesis he studied novel materials and architectures for the application in the field of semiconductor memory devices. Matthias Meier joined the IEK5-Photovoltaics at the Research Center Jülich as a Postdoctoral Scientist in 2009. In 2013 he became the group leader of the process technology group. His research interests include the development of plasma based processes for the fabrication of silicon based thin-films for solar cells and the imprint processes which are relevant for light trapping in solar cell devices.