Application

FLEXIBLE PHOTOVOLTAIC

With the increase awareness in cleantech, solar is one of the key thrusts in the effort to reduce dependency on fossil fuels to power our lives. Within the solar industry, there are several technologies used to build photovoltaic (PV) cells. The current de-facto standard is the silicon based, including monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon and amorphous silicon. These technologies are spin-off from traditional semiconductor wafer fabrication process thus the standard wafer fab equipment could be adopted for the fabrication of these photovoltaic cells.

Newer generation of PV material takes advantage of efforts to commercialize Building Integrated PV (BIPV) which requires the use of thin film PV. Thin film solar cells include Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS), Copper Indium Selenide (CIS), Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) , Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSC), and Organic Photovoltaics.

Thin Film Solar is known to be less efficient as compared to crystalline silicon, with the average efficiency hovering at 10%, but is cheaper to manufacture compared to crystalline silicon. Key to wider adoption of this solar technology is the robustness of the panel of which glass is still the gold standard. One of the standards to gauge robustness is moisture penetration into the device level, thus impacting the useful lifetime of the device.

Tera Barrier has already achieved the required barrier properties today.