The photovoltaics track on the second day of the IDTechEx event Printed Electronics Asia 2009 in Tokyo this week commenced with photovoltaics market forecasts for thin film technologies by IDTechEx chairman Dr Peter Harrop.
CIGS turnkey solution providers Centrotherm of Germany described their technology next. Centrotherm solutions take approximately 22 months from contract signing to full scale production, with efficiencies of modules starting at about 10% currently and predicted to reach approximately 12% in the next 2-3 years.
Solarmer went on to present their record breaking organic PV efficiency and routes towards increasing the performance of their solar cells. They also gave very promising results on lifetime testing of their solar cells.
Three more companies went on to present on the manufacturing equipment they are currently providing to the solar industry, imaging technology international (iTi), OTB-Pixdro and Trident. All three companies have a wide variety of processing equipment that is flexible and can be adapted to most solar technologies, from silicon based ones all the way to thin film and next generation organic and composite technologies.
Dr Daniele Rezzonico presented on the capabilities of SETFOS, simulation software developed by Fluxim, in order to model the performance of optical devices.
Professor Mike Turner from the University of Manchester in the UK gave an overview of the polymers studied there, in order to improve performance of organic solar cells while Dr Shkunov from the University of Surrey in the UK gave an overview of the efforts there to incorporate carbon nanotubes into organic solar cells. Performance is not yet reaching the levels of non-CNT doped cells but the initial results are promising and could lead to CNT-based solutions for boosting up polymer solar cell efficiencies.
The one presentation on the energy storage session focused on the work undertaken at the CSIRO in Australia, presented by Dr Matthias Hilder, who mainly described their efforts with the manufacture of zinc batteries and integrated pH sensors and the prospects for optimization of the technology through collaborative work with worldwide centers of excellence.
The final session for the day was focused on barrier layers for flexible electronics, with highlights including the high performing barrier layers by Vitex Systems, a leader in the field of high barrier films for electronic application that require flexible encapsulation, and also a presentation from Professor Beng Ong from the IMRE in Singapore. The IMRE has formed a spinout company called Terra Barrier, in order to commercialize their barrier technology, based on the combination of the dyad approach (organic plus inorganic compound layers) and the use of nanoparticles for plugging defects and holes, hence reducing the number of layers needed.
The conference was very well attended with registered attendees approaching 230. High quality information on some of the most innovative companies and technology institutes in East Asia as well as results from companies and institutes in Europe and USA with ambitions to spread their activities in this part of the world were reported.
The next event in the Printed Electronics/ Photovoltaics series is the USA installment and the largest event in the world on the topics, coming up in the beginning of December, in San Jose, California.
For more information visit www.idtechex.com/peUSA.
