Photovoltaics

Brisbane Materials Technology (BMT) and EVG have developed a partnership to provide a total solution – equipment plus materials – for anti-reflective coatings for solar and other applications. These AR coatings provide a 3% W_p improvement at the lowest cost/m² in the industry. BMT supplies the liquid precursor material and cure chemistry to the customer, while EVG provides all the necessary process steps in an integrated equipment solution set, leveraging their 15+ years of experience in technologies to coat, cure and test nano-scale materials on
large area substrates.

BMT’s patented technology creates a porous film of graded refractive index silica from a liquid precursor at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The coating is chemically bonded to the glass surface for optimum durability and life. BMT coatings have more than 2 years of testing in a high-suns accelerated environment (equivalent to >20 years in the field), and have met all the requirements for a solar AR coating including those embedded in IEC61215. Industry-leading solar customers have evaluated BMT AR coatings and found them to be the highest performing and most cost effective solutions available today.

The BMT technology provides a broadband optical coating, one that improves light transmission over the entire solar spectrum and at all incident angles. The properties of the AR coating can be tuned to the refractive index of the substrate. The optical bandpass can also be adjusted to optimize the performance with different types of solar cells.

Because the AR Coating is applied at room temperature, it can be used in essentially all solar applications, including:
- Cover glass for c-Si PV
- CdTe, CIGs, CIS: apply to cover glass on finished module
- Secondary or primary optics for CPV
- Cover glass or concentrating optics for solar thermal
- Plastic substrates for organic PV

3% more light to the solar cell using BMT ARC

Cross section of BMT AR coating on glass substrate

Improved transmittance with BMT AR Coating