Highlights from research and development

In January 2015 the Fraunhofer IWS in collaboration with Heliatek GmbH launched the 3.9 million Euro EU project ALABO. The goal is to develop technologies for cost efficient manufacturing of large area, light weight and flexible photovoltaic foils. These foils are also expected to offer a significantly improved longevity. For the first time the team of researchers will apply laser structuring processes for PV cells. Jointly with its European and German partners, the Fraunhofer IWS will perform research tasks on laser processing, optical process monitoring as well as the rapid evaluation of the barrier performance. The project will use IWS developed laser systems for high speed structuring. These systems achieve effective structuring speeds of 0.9 m² min^-1 on polymer surfaces. In 2015 this was a world record. Likewise, the IWS developed measurement system HiBarSens® also offers world record capabilities to measure the permeability of foils. The system detects the smallest water vapor permeability rates of 1 x 10^-6 g m^-2 d^-1.