Low-Cost, Nanolaminate Transparent Conductive Oxides for Thin Film Electrochromic and Photovoltaic Devices

Indium is currently on DOEs short term critical materials list. While it is believed by some that long term criticality will be reduced to low levels, China currently holds 73% of the worlds reserves and can create export controls to limit our access to indium at any point. In fact, export quotas for both indium and rare earths have been cut recently, over 70% in the case of rare earths. As several key US manufacturing growth and clean technology, i.e. thin film PV and thin film EC window, it is paramount that we regain control over materials supply. In response to this need ITN Energy Systems, Inc. (ITN), in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, proposes to develop a low-cost, nanolaminate transparent conductive oxide (TCO) as an alternative to indium tin oxide (ITO) for application in thin-film electrochromic windows (EC), photovoltaics (PV), and flat panel displays (FPD). In addition to reducing dependence on China, ITNs proposed nanolaminate structures dramatically increase electrical conductivity without sacrificing visible transmission and thereby enable enhanced device performance, i.e. greater dynamic range and faster, more uniform switching times for EC, higher efficiency for PV, and faster switching times and lower power consumption for FPD. The newly developed TCO will be integrated with a variety of thin film devices, including ITNs baseline flexible EC (FlexEC) to demonstrate enhanced device performance.