Potato chip bag technology enlisted for solar industry

From CNET News.com:

The secret to producing thin-film solar cells comes in part from the snack food industry, says Ascent Solar. The Littleton, Colo.-based company says it will deploy high-speed thermal evaporators--the same equipment used to seal Doritos bags--to produce copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar cells. Here's how it works. Ascent will spray the active CIGS material onto a polymer sheet rolling from one spool to another. The evaporating equipment will rapidly heat up the coated polymer sheet to eliminate liquid carriers and fix the CIGS material in place. Ascent will then cut up the sheets and integrate the solar cells into roof tiles, building materials or traditional solar panels. "You can do rapid thermal evaporation. The CIGS is what slows it down," said CEO Matt Foster. Some of the evaporation equipment comes from General Vacuum of Manchester, England. In a sense, Ascent is mixing early and new ideas from the CIGS industry. Laboratory scientists have demonstrated how to produce CIGS cells through evaporation. Evaporation, however, can be a slow process.

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