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nanotimes News in Brief
The Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Re- search ZSW, Baden Württemberg, Germany, has now advanced in developing an efficient coil coating method of thin film solar modules out of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) on plastic foil. The Stuttgart researchers can already carry out the most important production steps in one go at a facility with continuous flow. They soon want to combine all steps. This improves economic manufacturing. The efficiency of today’s solar cells is already at 10.2%.
The production of flexible thin film modules is complex and time-consuming. Each single layer is deposited in a separate facility. ZSW now merges these steps in a single facility. The researchers are aiming at completely connected solar modules with even higher efficiencies. Mass production could pave the way to cost efficient, flexible future gene- ration photovoltaic modules.
Since 2010, ZSW develops CIGS thin film solar cells at a 12 meter (39‘) long strip coating plant. The carrier material is a temperature resistant polymer plastic foil, namely polyimide. The foil is 0.0025cm (0.00098‘‘) thin and 30cm (12‘‘) wide.
“The speciality of the strip coating plant is that all coating steps are happening simultaneously in the same vacuum,” says Prof. Michael Powalla, mem- ber of the ZSW board and head of photovoltaics business area. “Whilst the back contact is applied by means of cathode sputtering at one end of the plant, absorber deposition of the transparent front contact layer happens somewhere else”.
11-05 :: May/June 2011
In the current development stage the molybdenum back contact, the three elements for CIGS absorber, and the zinc oxide window layers can be deposited. They are currently working on the development and integration of a new buffer layer. Later, the monoli- thic interconnection of cells is supposed to be fully integrated.
In 1991, researchers at New York University mana- ged to forge a DNA cube, the first three-dimensio- nal nanoscale object in which the position of each atom was programmed, defined, and known. DNA nanotechnology has since left its childhood behind and entered adolescence, and the field is growing in strength and power. It‘s now churning out appli- cations that are helping researchers map the atomic structure of proteins and compute inside cells, and soon may even start tracking and curing diseases. © Science
Robert F. Service: DNA Nanotechnology Grows Up, In: Science, Vol. 332(2011), No. 6034, Page 1140-1143, June 3, 2011, DOI:10.1126/science.332.6034.1140: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.332.6034.1140
After years of trying– and failing – to use DNA‘s ability to store and manipulate information to build a DNA computer, the field is finally advancing by going back to DNA‘s biochemical roots. © Science