Jan 4 2008
Braggone, the optoelectronics materials company, has received multi-million dollar funding from TEKES (The National Technology Agency of Finland) to commercialize their polymer materials for worldwide commercialization. TEKES is the same funding agency behind Nokia’s dramatic success in the cell phone market.
Braggone’s proprietary material technology allows for custom tuning of the inorganic-organic polymer material properties to suit specific applications. These flexible yet stable materials coat or print onto substrates at greater efficiency, lower temperatures and higher yields. The company’s current materials products are applied in digital displays used in mobile phones and televisions, advanced semiconductors, digital cameras, photovoltaic panels, LEDs and memory for PCs and MP3 devices. The TEKES funding is specifically targeted for taking the materials production and sales from the lab to commercial scales. These materials are part of an intellectual property portfolio of 17 filed patents, four of which have already been granted.
The research for the semiconductor industry has resulted in a unique set of materials that are nano-engineered siloxane compounds for silicon containing anti-reflective coatings (ARCs).
“We’ve had great success working in collaboration with chemical companies and equipment manufacturers to fine-tune and optimize the physical and application specific characteristics of these polymers,” commented Dr. Yrjö Ojasaar, Braggone CEO. “Due to that collaboration and now with the additional funding from TEKES, we are on a rapid path to commercialization, as we can deliver PV manufacturers with increased performance and reduced costs all in one turnkey solution.”
Out of this same polymer research, Braggone recently announced a new product line that greatly increases the efficiency of solar cells and allows manufacturing facilities to cost-effectively increase their capacity. The custom designed compounds can dramatically reduce reflection from glass and silicon, and therefore, deliver substantially more light to the active regions of the solar cell, resulting in higher efficiencies. Even when compared to materials such as silicon nitride, the Braggone materials can cut reflection by half and costs associated with deposition tools by even more than half. By incorporating Braggone’s unique materials into the manufacturing process, the costs of manufacturing solar cells can be dramatically reduced. Braggone tunes the optics of the cell by spray, slit, spin, or dip coating layers of molecularly tailored material, rather than having to use expensive chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools.
Ojasaar added: “Our technology and materials for solar cells will make the dream of sub-one euro per peak watt manufacturing costs a reality. We can replace the CVD batch process, expensive capex, and expensive operating costs by simply spraying, slit or dip coating the anti-reflective and hydrogenation coatings in a rapid and cost-effective atmospheric in-line process.”