With increasing global interest in safe and sustainable energy sources, a bright future is shaping-up for US based thin film PV production. With these developments, a local presence coupled with globa…
With increasing global interest in safe and sustainable energy sources, a bright future is shaping-up for US based thin film PV production. With these developments, a local presence coupled with global reach is critical to efficiently and effectively meet the rapidly increasing demand for sputtering targets. With over 30 locations worldwide including the US, Asia, and Europe, H.C. Starck offers local support to customers and is pleased to exhibit at this year“s Society of Vacuum Coaters TechCon 2011 Exhibition, 19-20 April in Chicago, Illinois – Booth 1214. By responding to the demand to lower the cost-per-watt, H.C. Starck“s Fabricated Products Group developed sputtering targets with superior sputtering performance for thin film PV (TFPV) energy applications. State-of-the-art thin film materials labs, equipped with sputtering tools and supporting equipment for testing film characteristics, together with in-house prototyping and modelling achieve this performance. 

Marketing to CIGS, a-Si (amorphous silicon) and CdTe thin films solar module manufacturers, H.C. Starck manufactures custom rotary and planar sputter targets from molybdenum and nickel based-alloys along with its other core competency materials: tantalum, niobium and tungsten. The most demanding requirements of target users in the areas of LCD display, large area coating and solar cell applications are accomplished through extrusion technology. H.C. Starck produces molybdenum rotary targets with inside diameters of 125mm (monolithic) and 135mm (bonded) applications in molybdenum up through the current largest rotary target requirement. Tantalum, niobium, nickel-vanadium and other materials are produced in planar or rotary form. H.C. Starck“s extruded rotary targets are fully dense with extremely low oxygen levels.