Silicon ink firm expands into China

03 Sep 2010

California-headquartered silicon ink supplier Innovalight has established a base in China to position itself to serve the country's growing solar cell manufacturing industry.

The office, in Shanghai, will handle sales and technical support for Innovalight's clients throughout China.

Innovalight, which is commercialising a silicon ink and add-on processing step to enable silicon solar cell manufacturers to boost the efficiencies of cells and cut manufacturing costs, opened the office to meet growing demand from the country's burgeoning solar cell industry, which has the potential to become the largest in the world in the coming years.

Chinese partners

The new office follows on from Innovalight's recent deals with Chinese partners, signed in July 2010. The most recent of these is with Yingli Green Energy, a large solar cell manufacturer.

The deal covers a technology, research and production collaboration agreement with Innovalight to enable Yingli to increase the efficiency of the commercial cells made on its lines.

Innovalight's other China deal is with JA Solar, which will buy Innovalight's silicon ink as part of process to make cells that exceed efficiencies of 20%.

The contract is for three years. The ink will be used in the commercial production of JA's new SECIUM solar cells, which is expected to begin before the end of 2010. SECIUM cells produced in trials earlier this year achieved conversion efficiencies of 18.9%, verified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Germany.

Innovalight is one of several nanotechnology companies developing advanced inks for a range of industrial applications and markets, many in greentech. Nanoparticle inks based on silicon or metals such as silver, copper and aluminium, in combination with screen printing or inkjet deposition processes, have wide application in the solar cell industry.

The technologies help manufacturers reduce production costs and boost cell performance. An example includes using nanoinks and fine deposition techniques to produce thinner conductive tracks yielding, so that more of the cell's surface can be used to capture to sunlight for conversion by the cell into electricity.

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