Solar-Tectic gets US Patent for low temperature growth technique
Solar-Tectic LLC, a US thin-film specialist, has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a major patent for a wide range of technologies including the growth of single crystal, highly textured, or large grained semiconductor films on inexpensive substrates, such as ordinary glass.
US patent (12/774,465) "˜Methods of Growing Heteroepitaxial Single Crystal or Large Grained Semiconductor Films and Devices Thereon' discloses a modified vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) thin-film (TF) growth technique that for the first time allows for low temperature deposition of high quality semiconductor films from a variety of materials such as silicon, germanium, and GaN, on inexpensive substrates.
The technologies, which were invented by the late Praveen Chaudhari, winner of the 1995 US Medal of Technology, have applications in various industries including thin-film solar cells, LEDs, TFTs, FETs, solar inverters, and nanowire devices.
According to the company, the cost-effective nanowire-like but thin-film growth process involving eutectic alloys is suited for large-scale industrial applications and can be carried out using common deposition processes currently used in various industries, such as e-beam and CVD.
Solar-Tectic LLC is a thin-film specialist with a primary focus on developing patented technologies for single crystal or highly textured semiconductor films on glass or metal tapes.
