Silicon Ink Is Spot On, NREL Experiments Show

[kristopher]

Silicon Ink Is Spot On, NREL Experiments Show
By Bill Scanlon, NREL
September 29, 2011

Ink can cause a mess, but the Silicon Ink developed by Innovalight behaves itself so well that when it is added to a solar cell it doesn't clump or spill, instead it boosts the cell's power by a startling, profit-boosting five to seven percent.

... it takes a real special ink to suspend silicon nanoparticles so uniformly that it can lay down the precise microns-thick lines needed to dope the silicon emitter exactly under the front metal contacts. Those contacts make a solar cell work.



...Dopants or impurities are used to change the conductivity of silicon and to create the internal electric fields that are needed to turn photons into electrons and thus into electricity. One of the great challenges is to distribute the exact concentrations of dopants in precisely the correct locations throughout the device.

Innovalight scored big with Silicon Ink because it found a way to suspend silicon nanoparticles evenly in a solution. Those silicon nanoparticles contain dopant atoms that can be driven into silicon solar cell to form a selective emitter...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/09/silicon-ink-is-spot-on-nrel-experiments-show?cmpid=WNL-Friday-September30-2011