The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 15, 2016
Filed:
Feb. 05, 2013
Alliance for Sustainable Energy, Llc, Golden, CO (US);
Teresa M. Barnes, Evergreen, CO (US);
James Burst, Lakewood, CO (US);
Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, Golden, CO (US);
Abstract
A thin film photovoltaic device () with a tunable, minimally conductive buffer () layer is provided. The photovoltaic device () may include a back contact (), a transparent front contact stack (), and an absorber () positioned between the front contact stack () and the back contact (). The front contact stack () may include a low resistivity transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer () and a buffer layer () that is proximate to the absorber layer (). The photovoltaic device () may also include a window layer () between the buffer layer () and the absorber (). In some cases, the buffer layer () is minimally conductive, with its resistivity being tunable, and the buffer layer () may be formed as an alloy from a host oxide and a high-permittivity oxide. The high-permittivity oxide may further be chosen to have a bandgap greater than the host oxide.