Research collab­or­ation initiated between the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and FHR Anlagenbau GmbH in the field of new Trans­parent Conductive Oxide (TCO) coatings

Today, the Solar Energy Rese­arch Insti­tute of Sin­g­a­pore (SERIS) and FHR Anla­gen­bau GmbH, Ger­many jointly announ­ced the start of a close col­la­bo­ra­tion on the deve­lop­ment of new Trans­pa­rent Con­duc­tive Oxide (TCO) coa­tings that have broad app­li­ca­ti­ons in the manu­fac­ture of solar pho­to­vol­taic modu­les and flat panel dis­plays. To meet indus­trial requi­re­ments, TCOs need to be both opti­cally highly trans­pa­rent and electri­cally highly con­duc­ting. At SERIS, several years of expe­ri­ence have been built up in thin-film tech­no­lo­gies, and a group of rese­ar­chers is working on the deve­lop­ment of next-gene­ra­tion high-per­for­mance TCOs. In TCO deve­lop­ment the use of toxic, scarce and expen­sive mate­ri­als needs to be redu­ced or com­ple­tely eli­mi­na­ted, without com­pro­mi­sing the func­tio­nal pro­per­ties. TCOs are widely used in thin-film solar cell tech­no­lo­gies such as CdTe, CIGS and amor­phous sili­con, they are also used in advan­ced high-per­for­mance sili­con wafer solar cell tech­no­lo­gies such as hete­ro­junc­tion solar cells as well as used for touch panel and dis­play app­li­ca­ti­ons which repre­sent the­page 2 of 4cut­ting-edge requi­re­ments of TCO lay­ers. Both SERIS and FHR have agreed to share their expe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise, and to join hands in a col­la­bo­ra­tive pro­ject aiming at lower­ing the cost of solar energy and impro­ving the per­for­mance of flat panel dis­plays.

"At SERIS we are in a race, toge­ther with the PV indus­try, to drive down the cost of solar energy” said Pro­fes­sor Armin ABERLE, CEO of the Solar Energy Rese­arch Insti­tute of Sin­g­a­pore. “We explore advan­ced solar cell con­cepts, and strive to imple­ment them in a high-volume low-cost pro­cess. Toge­ther with FHR we hope to deve­lop advan­ced trans­pa­rent con­duc­tive oxide lay­ers that will allow extrac­ting more energy out of a solar cell. This is one of the many indus­try-rele­vant rese­arch pro­jects going on at SERIS and it will cont­ri­bute to making solar energy the domi­nant energy source of the 21st cen­tury."

Dr Rein­hard FEND­LER, CEO of FHR Anla­gen­bau GmbH, added that “Nowa­days, the vacuum depo­si­tion of TCOs plays a key role in the fields of flat panel dis­plays, touch screens, fle­xi­ble elec­tro­nics, and rene­wa­ble energy. But the full poten­tial of these highly-func­tio­nal TCO films with their uni­que fea­tures of opti­cal pro­per­ties and wide con­trollable electri­cal con­duc­tivity is still a mat­ter to be opti­mi­zed. On the path to an even hig­her qua­lity of TCO lay­ers, fur­ther impro­ve­ments can be achie­ved by well-engi­nee­red vacuum pro­cess envi­ron­ments and pro­cess con­trols. By coope­ra­ting with SERIS we enter into a stra­te­gic part­nership with the aim of enhan­cing our lea­ding know-how in vacuum pro­cess tech­no­lo­gies on a high level and to offer state-of-the-art vacuum coa­ting solu­ti­ons to our cust­o­m­ers."

SERIS has acqui­red a state-of-the-art and highly ver­sa­tile in-line magne­tron sput­te­ring plat­form from FHR, which pro­vi­des excel­lent pro­cess con­trol and which is capa­ble of depo­sit­ing a variety of advan­ced TCO mate­ri­als onto sub­stra­tes with a size of up to 300 mm × 400 mm. This plat­form will allow SERIS to become a lea­ding R&D centre in thin-film and hete­ro­junc­tion solar cell rese­arch, pus­hing these tech­no­lo­gies to a com­pe­ti­tive posi­tion in the rene­wa­ble energy land­scape.

The Solar Energy Rese­arch Insti­tute of Sin­g­a­pore (SERIS) is Sin­g­a­po­re’s natio­nal insti­tute for app­lied solar energy rese­arch. It com­men­ced ope­ra­ti­ons in April 2008. SERIS is spon­so­red by Sin­g­a­po­re’s Natio­nal Rese­arch Foun­da­tion (NRF) via the Eco­no­mic Deve­lop­ment Board (EDB), as well as the Natio­nal Uni­ver­sity of Sin­g­a­pore (NUS). It has the sta­ture of an NUS Uni­ver­sity-level Rese­arch Insti­tute and is endo­wed with con­siderable auto­nomy and fle­xi­bi­lity, inclu­ding an indus­try fri­endly intel­lec­tual pro­perty policy. SERIS is glo­bally active but focu­ses on tech­no­lo­gies and ser­vices for tro­pi­cal regi­ons, in par­ti­cu­lar for Sin­g­a­pore and South-East Asia, and reaches out to India and China.

For media enqui­ries, kindly con­tact:

SERIS
Aditi SRIDHAR
Public Rela­ti­ons
Phone +65 6601 1742
Email: aditi.sridhar@nus.edu.sg