Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization

The cleanrooms have a controlled level of contamination to have a low level of environmental pollutants. Our clean room includes a fume hood, uv-filtered lighting, and a mask aligner.

Fume hoods allows for localized ventilation to limit exposure to hazardous or toxic fumes, vapors, or dusts. There is at least one fume hood in each of the main labs with 4 in each of the wet chemistry labs.

Glove boxes feature a re-circulating purifier to continuously remove oxygen, water, and solvent vapors from the atmosphere. We have many glove boxes used for a variety of purposes, ranging from sample storage to thin film deposition and processing.

Analytical ovens are able to provide uniform temperatures throughout the whole oven. There a various sizes and types house at PVIC, including a vacuum oven. They can be use for applications like annealing, curing, drying, polyimide baking, sterilizing, and other uses.

Our atmospheric plasma treater blows air through a high voltage electrode creating an oxygen plasma that can be used to treat a surface. An automated stage allows the sample to be moved below the 2 inch wide plasma jet for larger area treatment. It is an Enercon Dine-A-Mite system.

Our laser scribing system can electrically isolate individual areas on substrate. There are three lasers with wavelengths of 1064 nm, 532 nm, and 355 nm available. A tightly focused beam creates a small scribe width, approximately 40 µm. The system can scribe up to 24 in. x 24 in. samples.

Our mask aligner is used in lithographic patterning and is configured for use with 3 in. wafers. It is a Karl Suss MJB3 Mask Aligner.

There are several analytical balances in PVIC. They are accurate to 3 and 4 significant figures or 0.1 and 0.01 mg. All of the analytical balances have a transparent enclosure with doors to prevent dust and air current from affecting the operation. There is a microbalance that is capable of making precise measurement in the microgram range. 

Our plasma cleaner provides plasma cleaning by removing all organic matter from the surface of substrates through the use of plasma generated utilizing oxygen gas. This is a Plasma Etch PE-25-JW system.

Our table top centrifuge is available to precipitate unmixed materials. This system has a 5000 rpm maximum rotation speed.

Our tube furnace consists of a fused quartz reaction tube surrounded by heating coils in a thermally insulating matrix. This furnace allows for samples to be heated up to 1100 degrees C in a controlled environment. The current set-up allows for N2, Ar, and dry air.

Our ultracentrifuge has a maximum rotation speed of 90,000 rpm. Two rotors are available, a 45k fixed angle rotor and a 32k swinging bucket rotor. This is a Beckman Coulter L-90K ultracentrifuge.

There a several Ultrasonic Cleaners housed within PVIC. The cleaners deploy ultrasound between 20-400 kHz to thoroughly clean laboratory substrates or superstrates, vacuum parts, and other delicate items. These systems coupled with the deionized water system in enables for contaminant free substrates or superstrates as long as the appropriate surfactant is used.  

Our UV-ozone cleaner uses UV light and ozone to remove organic contaminants on sample surfaces. Samples show the improvements in surface wettability after UV Ozone treatment. This is a Novoscan PSD UV Ozone system.

Our vortex mixer is used to quickly mix samples by providing more agitation than hand shaking a sample.