Blogger
Tom Cheyney
Tom Cheyney is former senior editor of PV-Tech / Photovoltaics International magazine. A veteran technology journalist / editor / blogger, he covered the semiconductor, microelectronics and solar sectors for many years - since fax machines were state of the art. His PV-Tech blog has become a must-read for industry insiders and observers. He was also chief editor of "The Rise of Thin-Film Solar Technology" book published in early 2010.
I recently became aware of another photovoltaic startup, one based in
El Monte, not far from my digs in Los Angeles. Dina Lozofsky, who I met
when she worked at UCLA with the California NanoSystems Institute,
recently took the VP of IP development and strategic alliances position
at
Solarmer Energy. As she told
me in a recent email, the PV newbie (with UCLA-developed basic tech)
"is working to make flexible, translucent, efficient polymer solar
cells a reality, and we have just achieved the first demonstration of
our technology. As far as we know," she continued, "this is the first
polymer solar cell charging of a mobile phone (see photo below). The
panel was successfully tested out charging multiple brands of phones."
Solarmer's plastic PV demo charges things up.
She went on to tell me that they "are very excited about this
demonstration," and "are looking to the future of the technology. Our
goal is to demonstrate a commercial-grade version of the prototype by
the end of the third quarter of 2009. That prototype should provide 8%
efficiency with 3+ years lifetime. When we achieve this efficiency
goal, the charger we just demonstrated will be reduced to about the
size of a medium post-it note."
In a follow-up email, she said the active film layers on the
devices were about 200 nm, and are solution processed, currently with
spincoating, but later it will be done with a blading and printing
approach. Although using a batch process at this stage, Solarmer plans
to employ roll-to-roll manufacturing when they push toward pilot and
volume production. She added that in terms of the timing of said pilot
line and full production, "we are working on addressing those issues in
the next six months." As for the first major app envisioned by Solarmer
for its polymer PV, portable digital devices are the targeted niche.
Dina sent me a presentation delivered by the company's technology
researcher, Vishal Shrotriya, at the Organic Photovoltaics conference
in Philadelphia this week. But I'm going to hold off discussing any
details of the paper for now. Why? Because Dina has invited me to come
and visit Solarmer next month, so I hope to provide a full report on
this upstart company's plastic fantastic organic PV breakthrough in the
future.
