News Article
Solar Cells to benefit from Craic 20/20 Vision Tool
The 20/20 SolarT microspectrophotometer can be used for thickness measurement, optical efficiency and clarity of Photovoltaic (PV) CIGS and CdTe based solar cells.
Craic Technologies, a global manufacturer of UV-visible-NIR microscopes and microspectrometers, is marketing its 20/20 SolarT microspectrophotometer.
The 20/20 SolarT instrument is designed to measure the thickness of thin films as well as the optical efficiencies and clarity of photovoltaic cells. This can be done by both transmission and reflectance for crystalline silicon substrates or one of the thin film varieties like those that are Copper Indium Gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) or CdTe based.
Protective glasses and concentrator modules can also be analyzed for their efficiency. This powerful tool also has a host of other functions. It can be combined with CRAIC Technologies proprietary contamination imaging capabilities to locate and identify process contaminants. As such, the 20/20 SolarT represents a major step forward in metrology instrumentation available to the photovoltaic industry.
"Many of our customers want to test the quality of photovoltaic devices for rapid quality control of their products. The 20/20 SolarT microspectrophotometer was built in response to customer requests for a powerful, flexible metrology tool that can test a number of different aspects of many different photovoltaic devices" said Paul Martin, President.
"This powerful tool is also multifunctional in that it can be configured to measure thin film thickness, analyze optical efficiencies and spectral characteristics of solar cells and their components, for locating and identifying contaminants in the production process and far more."
The complete 20/20 SolarT solution combines advanced microspectroscopy with sophisticated software to enable the user to measure transmissivity, reflectivity, and luminescence. It is also able to determine the thin film thickness by either transmission or reflectance of many types of materials and substrates. It can also be used to measure the transmissivity and reflectivity from many of the components used to manufacture PV cells such as concentrators.
Due to the flexibility of the CRAIC Technologies design, sampling areas can range from over 100 microns across to less than a micron. Designed for the production environment, it incorporates a number of easily modified metrology recipes, the ability to measure new films and materials as well as sophisticated tools for analyzing data as well as options for automation including touchscreen control. Other features such as contamination analysis are easily added to this instrument.
