Press | Media

From 5^th - 6^th December 2019, the 18th International Conference on Reactive Sputter Deposition RSD took place in Braunschweig, Germany for the first time. Organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST, the conference and accompanying exhibition provided an excellent platform for the around 100 participants from 22 countries to discuss the latest trends and their implementation in new technologies and innovative products.

Solar cells with the highest level of efficiency provide electricity cost-effectively and thereby consume less space and fewer resources. They also enable the creation of new products, such as electric cars, which can be charged via solar cells. Due to the physical limitations, the efficiency of silicon solar cells can no longer be increased arbitrarily. With tandem solar cells comprised of several light-absorbing layers, however, efficiency levels of more than 35 % are possible, as a result of which they have become the focus of current solar-cell research. In the Fraunhofer lighthouse project “MaNiTU”, six Fraunhofer institutes are developing sustainable, highly efficient and cost-effective tandem solar cells on the basis of new absorber materials.