ORNL, industry collaboration puts spotlight on solar

April 5, 2011

Four manufacturers of solar-photovoltaic components are working with the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to address some of their biggest challenges.

John Wallace

Oak Ridge, TN--Four manufacturers of solar-photovoltaic components are working with the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to address some of their biggest challenges.

Through individual cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs), the companies hope to advance photovoltaic materials and processing technologies. The $880,000 effort is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

For these CRADAs, Mossey Creek Solar (Jefferson City, TN) is producing low-cost high-quality silicon wafers with significant reductions in waste material and energy consumption. Global Solar Energy (Tucson, AZ) is developing scalable non-vacuum-deposition techniques for thin-film copper indium gallium diselenide, a direct-bandgap material for solar cells. Ferro Corp. (Independence, OH) is developing inks and pastes to be used for highly conductive layers in thin-film solar-cell applications. Ampulse (Golden, CO) is developing an efficient roll-to-roll manufacturing process to deposit thin-film silicon. For the projects, the industry cost share exceeds 50% of the total cost.

Solar-cell manufacturing encompasses a broad range of disciplines, including crystal growth, continuous thin-film deposition, thermal annealing, barrier coating, joining and scribing techniques, and on-line quality control measures.

Through DOE's Industrial Technologies Program, ORNL issued a competitive solicitation to industry for proposals addressing key problems related to solar-cell manufacturing. These projects were selected following a technical and programmatic review process. ORNL expects to complete the projects within six months.

"These short-term focused projects are designed to provide proof-of-principle for innovative approaches to reducing the cost of solar-cell manufacturing," said Chad Duty, ORNL program manager for Solar Technologies.

ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the DOE's Office of Science.

Subscribe now to Laser Focus World magazine; it’s free!

About the Author

John Wallace | Senior Technical Editor (1998-2022)

John Wallace was with Laser Focus World for nearly 25 years, retiring in late June 2022. He obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Rutgers University and a master's in optical engineering at the University of Rochester. Before becoming an editor, John worked as an engineer at RCA, Exxon, Eastman Kodak, and GCA Corporation.