Space and Operational Environmental Protection for Thin Multijunction Solar Cells

The recent development of colorless, transparent polyimides provides a break-out solution for the operational and environmental protection of thin multijunction solar cells. The incorporation of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes into the polyimide backbone renders these systems radiation hard toward proton, electron and atomic oxygen degradation. The POSS polyimides also exhibit 5x improved impact and tear resistance relative to conventional imides. The incorporation of POSS also enables the spray application of a fully imidized coating and eliminates the post-bake procedures for conventional imide coatings. BENEFIT: Terrestrial solar cell encapsulation, encapsulants for quantum dot arrays, durable computer and pda screen coatings.