Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

Product Briefing Outline: Honeywell has developed a new material called ‘PowerShield’ PV325, which is designed to provide greater levels of protection to photovoltaic solar cells and modules that are located in more hostile environments. The material is UV-, moisture- and weather-resistant, and designed to also withstand the electrical load produced by the modules, which can operate at up to 1,000 volts of electricity. The material was developed primarily for rigid PV modules, which are specifically designed to feed power into a utility or local power grid. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Surfect Technologies has launched Solargy, the industry’s first programmable plating computer for solar applications.  Capable of accommodating combinations of 125, 156 and 210mm size cells, Solargy’s Direct Energy Plating technology is claimed to offer significantly reduced plating costs, while improving manufacturing speed and yield. Read more >>

Product Brief Outline: Sputtering Materials, Inc. is now offering high-density casted CIG (CuInGa) targets for thin film deposition in rotatable and planar form factors for thin film solar production. The casted targets offer high-density (99% +) materials that offer thin film technicians greater control and better material utilization in thin film deposition, physical vapor deposition and sputtering system processing. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Veeco Instruments recently launched the Dektak 150 Surface Profiler, which is designed to monitor thin films of advanced PVs as well as critical surface roughness, key for optimal absorption of photons. The standard Dektak 150 utilizes a newly designed 4 x 4-inch X-Y stage with manual theta. It can be configured with a 4-inch Y auto stage that enables 3D imaging, or equipped with a 6-inch X-Y auto stage that, in addition to 3D mapping, provides automation and programmability of over 200 sample sites. With the scan-stitching package, the system can perform even longer scans for stress measurements on larger wafers. Other stage features include wafer alignment pins for ease of use, three-point suspension for stress, lateral calibration for 99.9% accuracy, and a larger scan block for improved baseline stability, according to the company. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Dow Corning's Solar Solutions Group has extended its product offerings for the global solar energy market with an encapsulant and two potting agents that have been tested and qualified for photovoltaic module applications. The PV 6010 Cell Encapsulant and the PV 7010 and PV 7020 Potting Agents have been developed to eliminate the guesswork when dealing with the potential solutions available today. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Momentive Performance Materials, Inc. recently launched a new product line of Pyrolytic Boron Nitride (PBN) crucibles, heaters and coatings to consider for the enhancement of the production of CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, selinide) solar cells. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Advanced Energy Industries has introduced its latest power platform: the ‘Paramount’ RF-power delivery system. A key aspect of the new platform is power-delivery accuracy and control for increasingly complex film stacks and fine feature sizes. The 3kW Paramount system is well suited for both etch and deposition processes in semiconductor, FPD, MEMS and solar photovoltaic manufacturing. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: HORIBA Jobin Yvon has introduced the MM-16, a spectroscopic ellipsometer dedicated to the advanced characterization of film thickness and optical constants for a broad range of materials such as semiconductors, compounds, alloys and organic thin films. Read more >>