SCI Gets Grant to Make Products Used in Solar Panels

SCI Engineered Materials Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, a manufacturer of ceramics and metals for advanced applications in the physical vapor deposition industry, announced that it has been awarded a $708,715 grant from the Ohio Department of Development, subject to State of Ohio Controlling Board approval. This grant, under the state's Third Frontier Advanced Energy Program, will allow the company to is commercialize technologies (rotatable sputtering targets) for the production of transparent conductive oxide-coated glass used in thin-film photovoltaic solar panels. Rotatable ceramic sputtering targets can be used in production processes involving glass, stainless, or plastic substrates, making them applicable for second-generation thin film and third-generation dye cells. Optimizing the composition of the coating using these targets will allow manufacturers to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic modules.

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Published: December 2008

Glossary

cell: 1. A single unit in a device for changing radiant energy to electrical energy or for controlling current flow in a circuit. 2. A single unit in a device whose resistance varies with radiant energy. 3. A single unit of a battery, primary or secondary, for converting chemical energy into electrical energy. 4. A simple unit of storage in a computer. 5. A limited region of space. 6. Part of a lens barrel holding one or more lenses.
photonics: The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
sputtering: A vacuum deposition method in which the coating material (target) is removed from the surface of the coating source (cathode) by ion bombardment and deposited upon the substrates.
thin film: A thin layer of a substance deposited on an insulating base in a vacuum by a microelectronic process. Thin films are most commonly used for antireflection, achromatic beamsplitters, color filters, narrow passband filters, semitransparent mirrors, heat control filters, high reflectivity mirrors, polarizers and reflection filters.

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