🧪 First Hard Masks Made by UMLP: A Major Milestone for LEEMONS

We are thrilled to announce that the University Marie & Louis Pasteur (UMLP) has successfully delivered the first hard masks for the LEEMONS project—a critical component in advancing our groundbreaking solar cell architecture.

Why it’s big news:
These hard masks are designed to enable discontinuous ion implantation, a key step in realizing LEEMONS’ core innovation: low-energy electron multiplication. This process could significantly boost the efficiency of silicon solar cells beyond their conventional limits.

Technical details of the breakthrough:

• Fabricated on 380 µm-thick silicon wafers
• Produced using Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE)
• Achieved a record aspect ratio of 38, setting a new benchmark for precision microfabrication within the consortium

Such high aspect ratios allow for deep and narrow structures in the silicon, crucial for accurately directing ion implantation into micrometric areas. This level of precision is necessary for integrating advanced nanostructures into PV cell substrates—paving the way for the project’s first proof-of-concept devices.

🎯 UMLP’s achievement brings us a step closer to realizing the first high-efficiency, industrially compatible electron-multiplying solar cells.