The price of dust is about to drop.
Not exciting, you say? This isn't ordinary dust - look very close, and you'll see billions of identical crystals, each speck just one-thousandth the width of a human hair. These "quantum dots" efficiently convert between light and electricity. They will play a key role in next-generation solar panels, photodetectors, video displays and lighting.
Voxtel Inc., a private Beaverton company just 10 years old, has developed a new manufacturing process that promises to significantly decrease the cost of dots. Their aim is to grab a role, for themselves and Oregon, in the emerging quantum dot market, projected to grow to more than $700 million by 2013.
Quantum dots are extremely flexible and efficient when it comes to gathering sunlight for cheap, clean solar energy. Voxtel's breakthrough could pack the power-generating potential of large traditional solar panels into packages small enough to carry. Imagine discreet solar panels woven in to your shirt or handbag. Dead cell phone and iPods would be a thing of the past.
"Solar power is exciting because you can create the energy where it's needed," says Brian Bower, who handles technical communications.
The high cost of quantum dots, $5,000 per gram at the low end, has been a barrier for two decades. Dots are conventionally made by a chemist one batch at a time.
Voxtel invented a continuous system that automatically pumps out dots in large quantities, and even works with materials more environmentally friendly than those before. Their target is around $10 per gram with the capacity to fabricate kilograms of dots per week from a single production line. It takes about a tenth of a gram to make a square foot solar panel.
Within two years, Voxtel plans to get a full pilot manufacturing line up and running in Eugene or Corvallis. After the production process has proven its worth, they will license the technology to larger companies for high-volume production.
The power of dots lies in their optical properties. Bulk silicon can only absorb the red component of light, but a dot can be tuned to absorb any color by changing its size. A mixture of dot sizes soaks up the entire range of colors in the solar spectrum. The dots are printed onto surfaces using inkjet technology to make very thin photovoltaic cells.
"Our goal is to get really higher efficiency PVs, twice the efficiency of silicon" says George Williams, Voxtel's chief executive and founder.
The company, which employs about 20 people, got its start with a federal small business innovation grant.
"Soldiers carry around several pounds of batteries," Williams says. "We want to give them a single solar cell in their backpack."
The dots can be tuned to absorb infrared and ultraviolet light as well. Voxtel scientists say among possible uses of dots are nightvision goggles the size of normal sunglasses, rather than the large clunky devices familiar from TV.
The dot research took place in Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute's Lokey Laboratory at the University of Oregon in Eugene. ONAMI is a partnership of government agencies, universities and industry.
Access to UO's technical expertise and millions of dollars of lab equipment has proven a big advantage over its competitors, says Dave Schut, principal scientist at Voxtel. The rapid development has changed the long-standing promise of dots into tangible technology and given Oregon a head start in a new industry.