Unique High Temperature Liquid Crystal Polymer Substrate for Thin Film Solar Cells

The development of thin film solar cells on flexible, lightweight, space qualified substrates provides a smart solution to manufacture large area PV arrays with high power density. These lightweight devices would not only offer cost savings but would bemission enabling in solar power satellites and high altitude surveillance systems. Past results using CIGS on polymer substrates have suffered due to thermal limitations of the polymers used. Cells of CIGS on metal foils have suffered from the problems ofthe substrate¿¿s high density and high conductivity, which prevents integrated, interconnects.Foster-Miller proposes a unique high-temperature liquid crystal polymer film, which solves the above-mentioned problems. This polymer, polyphenylene benzo bisoxazole (PBO) can withstand temperature approaching 600¿XC in vacuum. The PBO substrate shouldenable CIGS deposition at a temperature high enough to yield high-quality material for high-efficiency solar cells. The University of Delaware¿¿s Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC) has recently demonstrated successful growth of CIGS on Mo-coated PBO at550 ,aC. In Phase I effort is focused on tailoring PBO for small area stationary deposition. In Phase II, this technology will be extended to the manufacture of larger area PV arrays in a continuous roll-to roll process. (P-020652)