The SNEC 4th International Photovoltaic Power Generation Conference & Exhibit in Shanghai is known as one of the BIG solar shows of the year. Indium Corporation’s Bill Jackson (Director of Solar Products) commented that the 2010 SNEC was: "A busy, well attended show exuding with confidence about the beginning of a worldwide economic recovery and good solar-related growth for the foreseeable future". That’s good to hear! Luckily, we had a strong team there to handle technical inquiries. Attendees from Indium 
Corporation included:
- Bill Jackson
- Thomas Tong
- William Aw
- Tommy Fan
- Michael Qiu
- David Hu
Even Indium Corporation President Greg Evans stopped by to visit the booth, to network, and to take the pulse of the industry.
This year, the SNEC was especially important for us. We had a chance to show off some of our new technology and sputtering target capability. The visitor interest seemed to mirror this thought with “…high interest in rotary CIG (Copper Indium Gallium) and Cu-Ga targets, also high interest in target bonding with NanoFoil®".
I also wanted to take a second to thank the people behind the scenes that help to make shows like this possible. Special thanks to Bill Wilson for helping to make sure our display targets looked their best, Gene Loparco and his team for dealing with the logistics of transporting our materials to/from the show, and Anita Brown for helping out with the details of coordinating the show. These Indium Corporation employees help us all shine at solar trade shows!
~Jim
The Society of Vacuum Coaters 2010 technical conference took place last week, so this week I’ve been rounding up the display sputtering targets and evaporation sources to display at our next event in China. If you’re not familiar with it, the SVC (Society of Vacuum Coaters) conference focuses on deposition materials, equipment, and processes. The Indium Corporation has a specific interest in both sputtering and thermal evaporation since we provide materials for these processes. There are too many applications to list, but some specific sputtering/evaporation apps that are close to my heart are:
Last week we set up a very impressive array of sputtering targets (shown in the picture), so I hope they all make it safe and sound to SNEC next week!
~Jim
For a interesting and very technical introduction to CIGS (copper indium gallium selenium) technology, check out the 3rd quarter 2009 edition of Photovoltaics International Magazine – page 112. This article by ZSW is a good primer to get you up to speed with this thin-film technology. (This blows the Wikipedia "CIGS solar" description out of the water!)
The article is a good read for those of you looking into CIGS technology because it goes well beyond the overview of what CIGS is with discussion of chemical and structural analysis of thin-film cells.
Testing standardization is important to all products, although it is often overseen when new technologies are first introduced.
Low temperature metallization paste is a product that fits this "new technology" catagory.
Note: Low temperature metallization paste is a material that is used in various thin film technology applications like CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium) solar cells. The picture shown to the right features 3 different test patterns - which yeild very different test results.
Do not fear though, we've published "
Test Methods for Measuring the Volume Resistivity and Contact Resistance of LTTF-7888 Solar Metallization Paste". This is a new application note compiled from R&D testing and customer feedback. Let me know what you think, especially if you have a chance to use this test method!
Thin Film PV Cell
最近小忙，只能凑凑杂文，不好意思。
1． 先请教大家一个问题，在太阳能光伏薄膜技术(PV Thin Film Technology)中, 哪种技术在中国领先？爲什麽呢？ 太阳能光伏薄膜技术，主要有这几种：
- Amorphous Silicon (a-Si): 非晶硅
- CIGS: 铜铟镓硒(Copper Indium Gallium Selenium)
- CdTe: 碲化镉
2. 关于公司裏的开会。 前天中午看牙医，他又准备给我嘴巴里面打麻醉针了。"怎么这次又打？我还以为这次的小治疗不需要了。怎么每次下午我要开会发言，都会遇上你的麻醉针？叫我等会怎么说话呀？"牙医问"会议很重要吗？"我郑重其事的回答"当然！无论和谁开会，每一个会议都是重要的。因为除了自己能给会议带来value之外，也是展现自己的机会，别人也会在心中评价你的…"牙医笑道"Such a corporate girl! Please be quiet for now."然后他毫不手軟一针下来，我这个talking-box (话匣子)也慢慢地少话了…Anyway, 在公司里面，对于每一个会议都认真对待，做好准备，應該沒錯的。下次我看牙医前要问清楚是否要打麻醉针了，不然很有可能会一边说话一边不自觉地流口水的。
3. 无卤化 (Halogen-Free): 明天开始会去美国西部休假10天。我知道自己会被那里的更纯净的自然景色给shock的，也更加会想起祖国（或是第三世界国家）在电子垃圾废墟中的人们(e-waste)…还是老话，今天，你无卤化了吗？
Pic: Google Image
上兩周在三藩市的SEMICON 2009展會上，隔壁的大樓裏還有一個太陽能行業的Intersolar展會。Indium公司在Intersolar中向大家介紹了我們的铜铟镓硒CIGS系列材料。
铜铟镓硒CIGS(Copper Indium Gallium Selenide)系列材料，主要是用在太陽能光伏行業的薄膜技術(Thin Film)之中。太陽能光伏發電可以大概分爲厚膜(Thick Film)和薄膜兩种技術。目前，雖然還是厚膜佔市場主導地位，但是把各種材料成本，光電轉換率，和一些其它因素考慮進來的話，我們預測太陽能薄膜的成長性會更好。
對了，在展會中，有個有趣的事情。 展會已經開始了，有一個豪華的展台和一個小小的不起眼的展台。但是，這兩個展台確有天壤之別。先不說別的，就說第一印象，人們一眼就能從小展台中看出兩個基本的重要信息：這是什麽公司，是買什麽的。但是如果你在豪華的大展台外轉悠很久，也無法得到這兩個基本信息。 這應該是很好的一個實例---花小钱，办好了事 VS 花大钱，办不好事。Cheers!
Pics: Indium Corporation
indium metal
Silver trade price chart, March 06, 2009, from Kitco
Indium公司是靠铟(indium)金属起家的, 现在的产品/业务还会涉及到各种有色金属，锡(Tin)，银(Silver)，铜(Copper)，金(Gold)，铅(Lead)，锗(Germanium)，镓(Gallium)，锌(Zin)，铜(Copper)，等等等等。
平时我做成本分析(主要是锡银铜铅)，看市场走势或是信息，常常用到以下的网站：
- www.ipc.org IPC网站。在Industry Data里面的Metal Price可以查到常用有色金属的走势。这是行业的组织/行规网站，有许多我们这个电子加工制造业EMS的信息。
- www.lme.co.uk 伦敦金属交易网LME。你可以免费注册用户名，查国际上各种有色金属和无色金属的近一两年的价格走势，伦敦金属交易所每天的金属期货/交易信息。如果你需要超过一两年前每日的金属成交价格，需要花费购买。我最喜欢的，是这里免费的各种金属市场应用分析。这里的金属存货量信息，对感觉某些金属的走势，也很有帮助。
- http://www.smm.cn/上海有色金属网SMM。整个中国有色金属的信息中心。这里的历史资料，需要花钱注册购买了。我最喜欢的是这里转换过后的比较图表，把实时和历史的伦敦金属交易所的报价与国内金属的报价放在同一个图中，让你清楚地比较性看到国际国内金属价格的走势和区别。
- http://www.nymex.com/index.aspx纽约期货交易网NYMEX。每天跟着大盘实时跟踪金属交易价格。我喜欢在这里查看金和银的信息。
- http://www.kitco.com/ 强烈推荐这里的Charts&Data 板块！清晰简单易搜索，表格实时性/对比性强，历史表格较齐全。我也很喜欢在这里查看金和银的信息。
其实我也只是个门外汉。今年北京安泰科信息开发有限公司的姚文羽女士和我联系，分享了她/他们对金属市场的一些信息研究成果。她/他们才是行家。在此感谢！金属这种大宗商品的国内外价格走势，和石油的价格走势息息相关。平时多点留心家事国事天下事，心中也大概有底会是什么样的一个价位了。
对了，有了这种成本的基本概念，再看看那些上市了的竞争对手们的每年的股价走势，每年的财务报表，在联系每天行业里它们公布的一些信息，能够对它们的运营状况/策略略猜一二。雅虎的Finance板块查公司的股价走势和财务报表挺不错的。有人说过"我们眼中没有竞争对手，只有客户！"哈哈，我的境界没有那么高，眼中和心中还是有竞争对手的。
你平时也关心有色金属市场的价格走势吗？有什么信息可以和我们大家一起分享吗？
Cheers!
Pic: 1. Indium Corp. 2. www.kitco.com
Plating Bath
Copper-indium-gallium-diselenide is one of the more promising thin film photovoltaic solar cell technologies. The "gold standard" for depositing the absorber layer in this photovoltaic is evaporation, and the current champion efficiency of 19.9% was achieved by vacuum evaporation of the absorber layer at NREL. Several companies are in pilot production of CIGS thin film photovoltaic solar cells using evaporation as well as sputtering, another physical vapor deposition (PVD) process.
Since both evaporation and sputtering require expensive and complex high vacuum equipment, other CIGS manufacturers are exploring non-PVD processes such as mixed oxide, mixed selenide or metal alloy nanoparticle printing. Another interesting, but less researched non-PVD process is electroplating. Controlled thicknesses of indium, copper, gallium and selenium can be sequentially be deposited onto a substrate using the respective individual plating bath, and the multilayer stack fused to form the CIGS alloy.
However, it would be ideal if the CIGS alloy could be electroplated in a single step from one plating bath containing all metals. Such alloy electroplating is relatively straight forward, if the individual metals have similar electropotentials. For example, tin and lead have similar electropotentials, and the electroplating of 60% tin and 40% lead solder alloy from one solution is routine. However, copper, indium, gallium and selenium all have varying electropotentials. While the development of a CIGS plating bath is technically possible by the proper selection of chelating/complexing agents and other chemical additives, developing the formulation chemistry to produce a stable and robust production electroplating bath presents a challenging task. The company who meets this challenge will have a winning process.
It was interesting to learn that CIGS semiconductor is catalyzing breakthroughs in advanced image sensors for digital cameras.
According to The Nikkei Business Daily (Tuesday, Feb 5 '08 edition) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Rohm Co. have jointly developed a new image sensor by fabricating a thin film of copper indium gallium di-selenide (CIGS) above the silicon substrate. The inventors were able to overcome the current leakage problem associated with CIGS. This sensor is more than six times as sensitive as a conventional silicon-based device and is also capable of detecting light across a broader spectrum, from visible light to near infrared light (up to a wavelength of 1,300 nanometers). 90% of the surface of this sensor is capable of detecting light which is triple the normal amount.
According to Nikkei "this combination of features can boost the shutter speed of digital cameras and provide the kind of nighttime vision useable for monitoring cameras and car-mounted safety systems".
Image: www.tribcsp.com
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