Solar Applications
Materion Large Area Coatings brings together more than 100 years of materials manufacturing expertise, and more than 20 years of service to the solar energy market. Currently, the Materion Large Area Coatings group offers a wide range of specialty inorganic materials designed for use in thin film, crystalline silicon, concentrator photovoltaic and concentrator solar power technologies.
Solar Energy’s Fastest Growing Technology
The thin film solar sector is undoubtedly one of solar energy’s fastest growing technologies. Paralleling this growth is Materion Large Area Coatings commitment to industry leadership in thin film materials manufacturing. Emphasizing environmental responsibility, materials designed for copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) technologies are made for large scale production.
High Purity Thin Film Materials:
- Back contact metals and alloys
- Binary and ternaries
- Buffer layer materials
- Cadmium Sulfide
- Cadmium Telluride
- Full Alloy CuGa
- Full Alloy CuInGa
- Full Alloy CuInGa
- Full Compound CuInGaSe
- Transparent conductive oxides
Responsive to market needs, Materion Large Area Coatings manufactures the form factors.
Form Factor Techniques:
- close space sublimation deposition
- evaporative
- printing
- sputtering
Form Factors:
- cylindrical sputtering targets
- finely divided powder
- granules
- planar
- tablets
Materials are recycled, adding value while reducing waste.
Specialty Materials at Materion Large Area Coatings
Specialty photovoltaic applications require specialty materials. Materion Large Area Coatings has the technical expertise to make those materials available to the specialty concentrator photovoltaic market. Coming from a rich history of precious metal (Au, Ag, and Pt) shaping, alloying and refining, Materion Large Area Coatings produces large volumes of precious metal sputtering targets, bonding wire and evaporation materials.
A complete line of precious metal reclamation services is also offered. In addition to sputtering target and evaporation, slug recycling, chamber services, such as shield cleaning and parts repair, are also available.
Materion Large Area Coatings High Performance Assemblies
Concentrator photovoltaic devices require high performance assemblies. A collaborative partner, Materion Large Area Coatings offers custom packaging solutions in response to our customers’ requirements.
This high performance, highly reliable solutions include ceramic and metalized ceramic submount assemblies. While traditional direct bond copper to alumina (DBCu alumina) designs are available in a large range of configurations, Materion Large Area Coatings also offers the highest performing submount designs incorporating beryllium oxide (BeO) as the heatsink.
Silicon based photovoltaic technology has been a dominant segment of the solar industry for many years. Throughout this time, Materion Large Area Coatings has been a reliable source of products and services for this market. Large volumes of anti reflective coating materials have been a part of our product portfolio since the 1960s.
Silicon and Amorphous Designs by Materion Large Area Coatings
However, Materion Large Area Coatings's products offerings are not limited to antireflective coatings. From our experience in the thin film industry, we are able to offer a number of options to crystalline and amorphous silicon designs. Some of these superior material options include:
- Ni-V; alloy material for back contact layers
- Si; poly and crystalline silicon for antireflective silicon nitride layers
- Ti ; antireflective titanium oxide and metallic back contact layers
- ZnO/Al2O3; transparent conductive oxide layer
Other Alternative Energy Options
A complete alternative energy portfolio incorporates solar energy outside of photovoltaics. For many years, concentrator solar power has been a part of the Materion Large Area Coatings product portfolio. At Materion Large Area Coatings, our capabilities also include heliostat builders employing parabolic and flat reflectors.
Contact Materion Large Area Coatings
For information on all of the solar applications we offer, please contact Materion Large Area Coatings today.