IDTechEx Announces Winners of the Printed Electronics 2008 Awards

Optomec has won the Technical Development Manufacturing Award for their M3D Aerosol Jet Deposition System that will be used for high volume printing of collector lines on solar cells. The M3D system is a fine feature, non-contact printed electronics solution for solar cell manufacturers that can print narrower lines with higher yields. Recently, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) demonstrated that M3D Aerosol Jet can produce more efficient solar cells using versions of commercial screen printing pastes. On average, the M3D printed cells were 0.7% more efficient than screenprinted cells, reaching a maximum efficiency of 18.3% when combined with Light Induced Plating and Annealing. For this volume production application, Optomec has developed a high throughput 40-nozzle Aerosol Jet deposition head that prints a solar cell every 2.5 to 3 seconds. The non-contact nature of the M3D Aerosol Jet system enables high yield printing on thinner photovoltaic wafers. Dave Ramahi, President and CEO of Optomec states “We are honored to be recognized for our development of a printed electronics manufacturing system for the production of higher efficiency solar cells. We believe that Solar Cell manufacturing is just the first of many printed electronic application areas where M3D Aerosol Jet printing will provide breakthrough production capabilities.”