Eikos Receives A $1.5 Million Department Of Energy Solar Cell Contract

Eikos Inc. has received a follow on $1.5 million contract from the Dept. of Energy to research and develop its Invisicon technology for solar cell devices. The original Department of Energy (DOE) grant, Award No. DE-FG36-05GO85035 received in 2005, was the result of the efforts of Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA).

Together with its research partner, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Eikos demonstrated in the first research phase of the contract that Invisicon is a suitable replacement for traditional transparent conductors, including ITO/PEDOT:PSS in organic solar cells and zinc oxide in Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) cells. The motivation for replacing metal oxide based transparent conductive coatings (TCC) is their inherent brittleness, expensive deposition cost and relatively high deposition temperatures, leading to reduced conductivity and optical transparency performance on plastic.

Alternatively, carbon nanotube-based TCC overcome all these shortcomings while offering the ability to be applied in existing, very low cost, plastic film processing equipment such as continuous roll-to-roll coating.

“The solar industry is closely monitoring our exciting research efforts, since our work could enable applications and lower costs for solar energy projects in the near future,” explains Joe Piche, CEO of Eikos. “Representative McGovern is not only helping bring jobs to Massachusetts through his continued successful efforts, but is helping America become more energy self-sufficient in the process.”