topics & Technologies
In our projects, we are working primarily on the following topics:
TCO – THE TRANSLUCENT CONDUCTOR
Transparent Conductive Oxides are indispensible to the functioning of flat displays, solar cells or OLED. The TCO-layers, depending on their use and composition, are characterized by a very high transparency both in the visible and in the infrared spectrum. Their conductivity enables the contacting at low loss of the electrically active layers without remarkably constraining the light to quit or pass through the active layer. TCO normally consist of metal oxides and can be deposited in different ways.
Besides their optical and electrical properties, TCO-layers must allow laser structuring and, for certain photovoltaic applications, etching for a special surface topography in order to capture the sunlight.
VON ARDENNE Development
Research and development at VON ARDENNE concentrate on doped zinc oxide layers (AZO) to be deposited on large areas by sputtering from magnetrons with cylindrical targets.
By developing a process technology for industry use, these layers were tested in a-Si/µcSi thin-film solar cells and achieved characteristics of the respective reference cells developed at the research center „Forschungszentrum Jülich". These characteristics were subsequently substantiated for large areas (Gen5 formats). Other projects in this field aimed at improving layer properties and developing cost-optimized production processes for TCO-layers the characteristics of which may be tailored to the respective application.
