Cooling of CPV devices is one of the essential issues to enable the full exploitation
of the advantages of light concentration. To address the problem of cooling CPV devices
this research work proposes an improved method for the processing of back metallization
integrated microcoolers for photovoltaic devices. The back metallization integrated
microcooler has the advantage of not being applicable for a wide variety of semiconductor
solar cell and not requiring any TIM material. The proposed process is based on the
evaporation of a titanium and copper dual layer with subsequent photoresist patterning
and electroplating of copper around the photoresist pattern to form the cooling microchannels
in the back metallization. The improvement of the process is the introduction of an
intermediate seed layer that is deposited after thickness of the electroplated copper
has reached the photoresist thickness. This additional seed layer will increase process
speed since closing of the channels will not depend on the lateral growth of the electroplated
copper any more.
