Natcore Technology Inc. (NXT:CA)

Natcore Technology is the exclusive licensee, from Rice University, of a remarkable new thin-film growth technology. Although the implications of this discovery for semiconductors and fiber optics are significant and wide-ranging, our technology has two immediate and compelling applications in the solar sector:

1. It could enable silicon solar cell manufacturers to reduce silicon usage by over 60%— thereby dramatically decreasing costs, improving profit margins and boosting throughput.
2. Most importantly, it promises to allow, for the first time, mass manufacturing of super-efficient (30%+) tandem solar cells with double the power output of today’s most efficient devices. Projections show our process has the potential to allow these solar cells to be manufactured at a lower cost than anything currently commercially available.

Having been independently tested and verified by one of the world’s most respected science and technology laboratories, Natcore’s technology is now ready to be commercialized.


Our goal: to make stand-alone solar energy competitive with conventional power generation.



In other words, we’re a little company trying to change the world in a very big way.

 
Working to change the economics of solar energy.
Advocates of alternative energy face an inconvenient, but incontrovertible, fact:
It takes hugely rich government subsidies to make

solar energy cost-competitive with conventional power.
And most people believe it’s going to be that way for many years to come.
We, however, think they’re going to be proven wrong. Because Natcore Technology controls a remarkable new thin-film growth process with two immediate and compelling applications in the solar sector:

It has the potential to reduce silicon usage in solar cell manufacturing by over 60% - thereby dramatically decreasing costs, improving margins and boosting throughput. It promises to allow, for the first time, mass manufacturing of tandem solar cells with twice the efficiency of the best solar cells available today.

Technology Overview

Natcore was formed to exploit technology, licensed from Rice University, that enables the controlled deposition of silicon dioxide and mixed silicon oxides from an aqueous solution at ambient temperatures and pressures.


That’s quite a mouthful. So let’s look at it in layman’s terms...


Silicon dioxide, or silica, is a fundamental building block in semiconductors, fiber optics and, of course, solar cells. It is an absolutely essential element in all these applications, and it is currently deposited onto silicon through a process called “Thermal Oxide Growth.”


Simply put, this process uses complicated, multi-million-dollar furnaces, operating in a vacuum and at temperatures of up to 1,000º Celsius (1,800º Fahrenheit), to grow the necessary thin films of silicon dioxide. In contrast, Natcore’s “Liquid Phase Deposition” (LPD) process simply grows these thin films of silicon dioxide in mild chemical baths using standard, low-cost equipment.


Because Natcore’s process is so relatively mild, it allows for much thinner silicon wafers, as well as the development of advanced materials and devices that would be destroyed during the standard Thermal Oxide Growth process.

Natcore’s "Liquid Phase Deposition" LPD process was discovered at Rice University and has been independently tested and validated in an industrial laboratory setting at one of America’s most respected laboratories.


In short, the technology is now ready to be tailored to specific applications. The films and processes Natcore plans to move into commercial production promise to have significant impacts on solar cells, semiconductor devices, optical and optoelectronic components, prescriptive and protective eyewear, and energy-saving architectural coatings, among many other uses.


The first products are planned for the rapidly growing silicon solar cell manufacturing industry.