Inovalight Developing Solar Ink

Innovalight is developing light-activated power generating products based on a unique and patented solvent-based silicon nanomaterial platform. Innovalight claims that it has a cost savings over traditional silicon products by using less silicon and having a more efficient manufacturing process as well as having some unique optical advantages.  It is a start-up company aiming to take advantage of the rising cost of solar cells that are based on monocrystalline or polycrystalline silicon as the price of these traditional solar products continues to rise. 

Innovalight solution-processes the quantum dots in a so-called silicon "ink" that lends itself to proven manufacturing technology using roll-to-roll printing technology used for printing on paper or film.  Being able to deposit ink on flexible substrates allows Innovalight to apply its technology to applications such as clothing and portable chargers for both consumer and military customers.

By controlling the sizes of the dots from 2 to 10 nm the company can tailor either the absorption or emission spectra of the resulting film. This allows capture of everything from infrared to ultraviolet and the visible spectrum in between which is not possible with conventional technology.

The technology is also capable of being used as a very efficient emmiter or light source.  By controlling the particle size you can emmit light of any color or a combination of particle sizes that will give off white light.

Innovalight is an early-stage technology start-up company based in Santa Clara, California.

Their technology is similar in some respects to others that are developing thin-film silicon photovoltaics.  Kyocera, Unaxis , Ovonics, Sanyo, Energy Photovoltaics , Konarka, Nanosys and Nanosolar are companies in this field that I have written posts about.  It seems with all these companies and all the companies developing non-silicon thin-film products, a few should emerge as leaders with low cost solar products.

Resources:

Inovalight, Santa Clara, CA, USA
Start-up targets thin-film silicon solar cells, Optics.org, January 16, 2006

Technorati tags: solar, pv solar, solar power, energy, technology

Comments

[JesseJenkins]

They seem to be describing a similar process as the other companies you mention, Jim, but they are also using quantum dots which offer much greater absorption qualities than normal thin-film PVs (theoretic efficiencies as high as 65% are possible with quantum dots).

If these guys can make cheap, easily mass-produced thin-film PVs with efficiencies in the 20-40% range, this could be revolutionary ... of course, there's a lot of coulds, ifs and cans in there ...

[Jim from The Energy Blog]

Konarka also has a joint development with Evident Technologies to use quantum dots in its solar cells that sound the most like Inovalight's of any of the companies that I listed. The reservation I have about these two companies is that they seem to be concentrating all their efforts on fabrics and battery chargers for the military rather than solar panels. It could be that is the only good source of funding for their development.

Kyocera, Ovonics and Sanyo are already in production, perhaps with a product not as effficient as those being developed by Inovalight and Konarka.

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Very interesting stuff, thanks!

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Using Solar Energy to make our lives easier is really important. It is like the invention of this solar ink and other stuff like solar power cells. I admire Inovalight for making this brave and helpful move.

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