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You had me at "Ion Cannon".
"Twin Creeks, a solar power startup that emerged from hiding today, has developed a way of creating photovoltaic cells that are half the price of today's cheapest cells, and thus within reach of challenging the fossil fuel hegemony. As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. There are two problems with this approach: Much in the same way that sawdust is produced when you slice wood, almost half of the silicon block is wasted when it's cut into 200-micrometer slices; and second, the panels would still function just as well if they were thinner than 200 micrometers, but silicon is brittle and prone to cracking if it's too thin. Using a hydrogen ion particle accelerator, Twin Creeks has managed to create very thin (20-micrometer), flexible photovoltaic cells that can be produced for just 40 cents per watt; around half the cost of conventional solar cells, and a price point that encroaches on standard, mostly-hydrocarbon-derived grid power."
You had me at "Ion Cannon".
Pretty fascinating stuff. Should be interesting to see where solar is 5, 10 years from now.
Now, we just need better batteries...
I wonder how the automation equipment handles such thin material.
A standard 200mm wafer is (if I recall) about 0.7 mm thick. That's 700,000 microns. Now these are actually rather robust, and there is a later stage process that back grinds them to a far thinner product. They are very fragile after back-grinding. After this step, the dies are cut.
Now of course, technology changes, but I have first hand experience of what I mentioned.
As I think about it, it isn't much different than fiberglass. Glass goes from strong, to brittle when it's thin, to flexible when it's very thin.
Nice work from these guys.
You didn't read any of the linked articles... the 20-micrometer layer is deposited on flexible thin metal layer... that's what gives it the flexibility...
I thought it said the metal was deposited on the silicone.
Yes I read it, Mr. ASSume
Glad they may make them cheaper but the panels currently are only 80 cents of the $5 per watt installed price of PV. Forty cents won't make that huge of a difference.
Going with WC on this one. It clearly says the metal backing is applied to the silicone.
the metal backing is what gives it the flexibility, that's what I was pointing out and what was completely absent from WC's theory:
Definitely my mistake in assuming he would understand what he read...
That's true, but that's pricing for a single module. Would be interesting to see how much of a dent it makes on volume installations.
Wrong.
The metal backing keeps it intact. The crystal that thin is already more flexible than the metal, and will shear easily. You cannot add metal and make it flexible.
After the back-grind process, wafers can be bent pretty good. Not as much as represented in the article, but the thinner they are, the more flexible they are. They will bend real easy 45 degrees from the direction of the crystal lattice, and snap in a heartbeat with the lattice.
Have any hands-on experience with silicon wafers by chance?
From the article:
A metal backing is applied to make it less fragile (and highly flexible, as you see on the right), and the remaining silicon wafer is taken back to the particle accelerator
Uhhh...not sure why you are acting like such an attack dog on this...obviously the silicon is just as flexible as the metal backing or it would fracture when rolled up like that. The metal backing is added for durability.
Flexing the layer without the metal backing would destroy it. It's too fragile. Without the metal backing, there is no such flexibility.
Whatever. You are clearly pulling stuff out of your ass just to argue with WC. If the silicon laminate layer was not flexible it would still micro fracture on the outside curve when rolled up, metal backing or not.
Nlo dumbass. No metal layer = no durability. It has nothing to do with flexibility. The metal layer prevents impact fracture/penetration.
From the article:
A metal backing is applied to make it less fragile (and highly flexible, as you see on the right), and the remaining silicon wafer is taken back to the particle accelerator
I understand that since english is your second language you aren't getting the meaning in context. In the parenthesis the author probably should have used "yet" instead of "and".
Adding the metal did not suddenly make a brittle material flexible. It made an extremely thin and flexible material DURABLE for commercial use.
English has nothing to do with it. Silicon is still too brittle at the micrometer range. You need to be in the nanometer scale of thickness to make it flexible enough, which is the reason this thing needs to be processed by the ion cannon pre and post the addition of the metal layer.
Here's an article from 2006 explaining this:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/17237/
lol firsthand
I'll also add that Si is quite brittle at the micron scale.
Yes, wrong number of zeros.
Have you ever seen silicon bend? I have. It depends on the direction you bend it across the lattice. In one direction, it will snap readily in line with the crystal structure. Brittle in this direction. It is resistant to bending, but it will bend without breaking as long as you don't start a crack in line with the crystal grain.
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