New Energy Laser Technology Leader Upgrades Again To Help PV Inspection

2023 is coming to an end, this year the domestic laser industry shows signs of beginning to recover, although the overall market pressure is still very large. The new energy application represented by power battery and photovoltaic has become the biggest bright spot, and all major manufacturers are intensively laying out the track. In the energy saving and emission reduction, carbon peak trend, the new energy field will become an important direction of the future of laser enterprise wrestling.
Photovoltaic industry soaring
Domestic laser enterprises to accelerate domestic substitution
As we all know, from the birth of the first silicon-based solar cells in 1954 after 50 years, the laser and photovoltaic and not too many intersections, until the birth of PERC batteries, laser technology to help PERC batteries to achieve industrialization of the photovoltaic industry has opened the door to more applications for laser equipment. With the continuous iteration of photovoltaic technology and process, laser equipment in the photovoltaic process plays a more and more role. In the production of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, laser processing technology is currently mainly used in punching, ablation, doping, repair and cutting processes; in the production of thin film photovoltaic cells, laser processing technology is mainly used in coding, scribing and clearing the edge of the process.
The year 2021 is regarded by many investors as the "peak moment" of the PV industry. In this year, Jabil also began to layout the new energy field, and was one of the first batch of domestic laser manufacturers to enter this field. In the context of cost reduction and efficiency and rapid expansion of production capacity, in recent years, domestic lasers and equipment have entered the new energy supply chain, and gradually realize the domestic substitution of foreign products. Jabil, for example, has expanded from module to cell laser processing, and made breakthroughs in the fields of PERC, TOPCon and Calcium-Titanium-mineral battery, etc., and has successfully gained the certification of the head customer and bulk purchase.
In August 2021, the world's first set of flexible calomel film cutting equipment customized by Jieput for Dazheng Micro-Nano passed the acceptance and was put into use; in October 2022, Jieput realized the development and delivery of the laser light source for TOPCon SE laser one-time boron expansion; and in December 2023, Jieput's calomel laser film cutting equipment assisted GCL Photonics' calomel stacked module to reach a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 26.34%, which was recognized by the China Academy of Measurement and Science (CAMS). The photovoltaic conversion efficiency of GCL Solar's CaTiO2 stacked modules reached 26.34%, which was authorized by the China Academy of Metrology and Science and issued an official test report, breaking the world record again. In addition, Jabil's M8 series lasers can also be used to drill square holes, slot holes and other glass shapes with different thicknesses of photovoltaic glass. Focusing on the pain points of the new energy industry, after several years of development, Jabil has become a laser technology leader in the new energy field.
According to relevant statistics, in the PERC era, laser equipment is mainly used in the front end of the battery production, the value of a single GW in more than 10 million yuan, while in the era of high-efficiency batteries, laser equipment not only in the front end of the battery production value rises to more than 20 million yuan / GW, and in the back end of the battery production of the metallization process will also have a certain percentage of penetration. According to estimates, 2022-2025 photovoltaic laser equipment (excluding module link and calcite technology) total market size of about 20 billion yuan.
PL VS EL
A word spot semiconductor laser to help photovoltaic inspection
In the production process of photovoltaic panels, there may be hidden cracks, uneven diffusion, false prints and other problems, the existence of these defects may affect the photoelectric conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells, reduce the service life of the battery, affecting the stability of the photovoltaic system. For this reason, these defects need to be detected at the first time in the production process, and how to detect them efficiently becomes crucial.
In the initial development stage, EL (electroluminescence) inspection scheme is widely used in PV wafer inspection, which detects defects by forward biasing and observing the self-luminescence of the wafer. As this program requires the probe to the wafer surface piece by piece for contact detection, on the one hand, increases the risk of secondary hidden cracks, on the other hand, the detection speed is slow, limiting the improvement of production efficiency.
In order to solve this industry pain point, Jabil has launched a PL (photoluminescence) solution based on a one-spot semiconductor laser for photovoltaic wafer inspection, which utilizes a specific wavelength of laser light to optically excite the sample, and realizes non-contact inspection by means of a highly sensitive camera for light sensitivity and imaging. Compared with EL inspection, PL inspection has many advantages, such as eliminating the risk of secondary hidden cracks, improving inspection efficiency, and accurately determining the internal defects of wafers, as well as a wider range of application scenarios, which can completely cover the entire PV wafer process, thus improving the production qualification rate and lowering the cost of manufacturing, making it the best alternative to the EL solution.
As one of the core modules of PL (photoluminescence) detection, Jieput a word spot semiconductor laser output power of up to 230W, through the circuit board to control the current (current output accuracy of 0.01A) output to drive the semiconductor laser, the power adjustment accuracy of 0.5W, the use of water-cooled cooling, real-time monitoring of the semiconductor laser temperature, with over-temperature protection and other functions, can be set to output frequency, duty cycle, output power and so on. Output frequency, duty cycle, output power and other related parameters, the output head is with a linear lens to achieve a uniform word spot output, while using water cooling to ensure safe and reliable operation of the lens, can be used for photovoltaic cell wafer defects such as dirt, scratches, black spots, broken grids, concentric circles, hidden cracks, etc., significantly improve the user's production line inspection efficiency and wafer shipment quality, and become the first choice for photovoltaic inspection applications program.
Solve the industry's pain points
Further promote the development of new energy industry
According to the chairman of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, Cao Renxian, chairman of Sunny Power, it is expected that by the end of 2023, China's cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic will reach 5.6 billion kilowatts, accounting for nearly 20% of the total installed capacity. Exports, despite the impact of falling export prices, the export value of a small decline, but the export volume still maintains high growth, 1-10 months of China's silicon wafers, batteries, modules export volume increased by 90%, 73% and 34% respectively.
Market to the good, the industry to the "volume", is the practitioners of China's photovoltaic industry in 2023, the general impression, which is also the same as the domestic laser industry trends. With the new energy vehicles, photovoltaic and other industries continue to fire, attracting the capital market and the industry chain supporting manufacturers to compete to enter. Only in 2023, there are a number of domestic manufacturers through the establishment of subsidiaries, the establishment of technical laboratories and other ways to increase the layout of the new energy track, the new energy track has become more and more crowded.
After a few years of rapid and furious, the photovoltaic industry is about to usher in the stage of overcapacity, but the footsteps of technological innovation never stop. All along, the main theme of the photovoltaic industry is to reduce costs and increase efficiency. With the P-type PERC cells close to the efficiency limit, with a higher photoelectric conversion efficiency of N-type cell technology is known as the next generation of photovoltaic cell technology. Specifically, N-type cell technology is mainly categorized into TOPCon, HJT and BC, etc., and the demand for advanced laser technology for these will not stop.
To this end, Jabil, with its deep technical accumulation in the fields of pulsed, continuous, solid state, ultra-fast laser technology and core automation technology, can be oriented to the actual needs of the user for the combination of technological solutions, the launch of customized product solutions, such as the release of the word spot semiconductor lasers, from the source source technology to solve the industry's pain point problems, from the processing of the quality and efficiency of the customer's efficiency, to provide a boost to the new energy industry! Provide assistance for the development of new energy industry!