Innovalight establishes new record with silicon ink solar cells

SUNNYVALE, USA: Innovalight, Inc., a privately-held firm selling a platform of silicon ink-based high efficiency solar cell materials and technology, announced that the company has achieved a new record of 19 percent conversion efficiency with silicon ink processed solar cells. The conversion efficiency of a solar cell is the proportion of sunlight energy that a cell converts to electrical energy.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Germany, an official independent solar cell testing center also measured the results on industry standard size cells made by Innovalight.

Innovalight's proprietary platform, Cougar offers a readily transferable process to crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers that allows them to improve solar cell performance, reduce cost and boost output capacity by adding a simple step to already installed manufacturing lines. The opportunity is significant – this year close to four billion crystalline wafers will be processed into solar cells, according to Navigant Consulting, Inc., a leading solar industry research firm.

"We continue to push toward our goal of delivering over 20 percent conversion efficiency to our customers," said Homer Antoniadis, chief technology officer at Innovalight. "Our patented solar cell process with silicon ink is simple and optimized for use with silicon wafers and widely adopted industry printing tools," he added.

Dr. Antoniadis will present these results at the 2010 SNEC 4th International Photovoltaic Power Generation Exhibition and Conference which will take place from May 5-7 in Shanghai, China.

Innovalight is currently working with several solar cell manufacturing companies and is ramping production of silicon ink in Sunnyvale, California.

In February, the company was awarded a key patent by the US patent and trademark office for the manufacturing of crystalline wafer solar cells with silicon ink. Innovalight has filed for over 60 patents for silicon ink and high efficiency solar cells using silicon ink processes.