Power Electronics ♦ news digest
are more plentiful than scarce materials such as cadmium and are free from manufacturing restrictions imposed on lead-based nanoparticles.
“Half the world already lives off the grid, and with demand for electrical power expected to double by the year 2050, it is important that renewable energy sources like solar power are made more affordable by lowering the costs of manufacturing,” Buriak says.
Her team’s research supports a promising approach of making solar cells cheaply using mass manufacturing methods like roll-to-roll printing (as with newspaper presses) or spray-coating (similar to automotive painting). “Nanoparticle-based ‘inks’ could be used to literally paint or print solar cells or precise compositions,” Buriak continues.
Buriak collaborated with U of A post-doctoral fellows Erik Luber of the U of A Faculty of Engineering and Hosnay Mobarok of the Faculty of Science to create the nanoparticles. The team was able to develop a synthetic method to make Zn3P2nanoparticles, and demonstrated that the particles can be dissolved to form an ink and processed to make thin films that are responsive to light.
Buriak and her team are now experimenting with the nanoparticles, spray-coating them onto large solar cells to test their efficiency. The team has applied for a provisional patent and has secured funding to enable the next step to scale up manufacture.
This work is described in detail in the paper, “Solution- Processed Zinc Phosphide (α-Zn3P2) Colloidal Semiconducting Nanocrystals for Thin Film Photovoltaic Applications, “ by Erik J. Luber et al in ACS Nano. DOI: 10.1021/nn4034234
The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Power Electronics
PVA TePla brings SiC crystals into mass production
The baSiC-T tool is suited for the growth of silicon carbide for high-performance electronics SiC crystals are mainly required by customers working in
high-tech markets.
Typical applications include high-performance electronics such as hybrid and electric cars, air conditioning systems, LED applications and DC/AC converters for photovoltaics. The major advantage in SiC material lies in the enormous energy-saving potential of over 40 percent compared to conventional silicon components.
In addition to this, the future will bring completely new prospects in the semiconductor industry as the product can also be used at high temperatures and high voltages in excess of 10,000 volts; this dramatically exceeds the potential of the silicon used today.
Modular structure and high degree of automation
The design of the innovative crystallisation system ‘baSiC-T’ is based on a modular concept and allows substrates with a diameter of up to 150 mm to be used. Low operating costs and a high degree of automation in the baSiC-T facilitate inexpensive mass production of SiC.
Successful use in industrial production
Systems to manufacture SiC crystals have already been delivered to several customers in Europe and Asia and been successfully accepted, providing proof of the systems’ outstanding performance.
New Generation SiC PVT Crystal Growth Furnace
In addition to the baSiC-T, a series of other PVA TePla systems are already being used in the field of power electronics. The SiCube is an industrially tested system for SiC volume crystal production by means of PVT and HTCVD. The firm’s Floatzone (FZ35) and Czochralski (EKZ) systems are used to crystallise high-purity silicon.
The recycling of susceptors using GaN epitaxy processes is performed in special PVA TePla vacuum furnaces. Different innovative metrology technologies for non destructive quality control are also available.
October 2013
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