Thin film - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A thin film is a layer

Layer (electronics)

A layer is the deposition of molecules on a substrate or base .High temperature substrates includes stainless steel and polyimide film and PET ....

of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer

Monolayer

- Chemistry :A Langmuir monolayer or insoluble monolayer is a one-molecule thick layer of an insoluble organic material spread onto an aqueous subphase. Traditional compounds used to prepare Langmuir monolayers are amphiphilic materials that possess a hydrophilic headgroup and a hydrophobic tail...

) to several micrometer

Micrometer

A micrometer , sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw used widely for precise measurement of small distances in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier,...

s in thickness. Electronic

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

semiconductor

Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...

devices and optical coating

Optical coating

An optical coating is one or more thin layers of material deposited on an optical component such as a lens or mirror, which alters the way in which the optic reflects and transmits light. One type of optical coating is an antireflection coating, which reduces unwanted reflections from surfaces, and...

s are the main applications benefiting from thin film construction.

A familiar application of thin films is the household mirror

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...

, which typically has a thin metal coating on the back of a sheet of glass to form a reflective interface. The process of silvering

Silvering

Silvering is the chemical process of coating glass with a reflective substance. When glass mirrors first gained widespread usage in Europe during the 16th century, most were made of an amalgam of tin and mercury, but by the 19th century mirrors were commonly made through a process by which silver...

was once commonly used to produce mirrors. A very thin film coating (less than a nanometre thick) is used to produce two-way mirror

Two-way mirror

A one-way mirror, also known as a two-way mirror, one-way glass, or two-way glass is a mirror which is partially reflective and partially transparent...

s.

The performance of optical coatings (e.g. antireflective, or AR, coatings) are typically enhanced when the thin film coating consists of multiple layers having varying thicknesses and refractive indices

Refractive index

In optics the refractive index or index of refraction of a substance or medium is a measure of the speed of light in that medium. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium....

. Similarly, a periodic structure of alternating thin films of different materials may collectively form a so-called superlattice

Superlattice

Superlattice is a periodic structure of layers of two materials. Typically, the thickness of one layer is several nanometers.- Discovery :Superlattices were discovered early in the 20th century through their special X-ray diffraction patterns....

which exploits the phenomenon of quantum confinement by restricting electronic phenomena to two-dimensions.

Work is being done with ferromagnetic and ferroelectric

Ferroelectric polymers

Ferroelectric Polymersare a group of crystalline polar polymers that are also ferroelectric, meaning that they maintain a permanent electric polarization that can be reversed, or switched, in an external electric field....

thin films for use as computer memory

Computer memory

In computing, memory refers to the physical devices used to store programs or data on a temporary or permanent basis for use in a computer or other digital electronic device. The term primary memory is used for the information in physical systems which are fast In computing, memory refers to the...

. It is also being applied to pharmaceuticals, via thin film drug delivery

Thin film drug delivery

Thin film drug delivery uses a dissolving film or oral drug strip to administer drugs via absorption in the mouth and/or via the small intestines...

. Thin-films are used to produce thin-film batteries. Thin film application also be adopted on Dye-sensitized solar cell.

Ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

thin films are in wide use. The relatively high hardness and inertness of ceramic materials make this type of thin coating of interest for protection of substrate materials against corrosion, oxidation and wear. In particular, the use of such coatings on cutting tools can extend the life of these items by several orders of magnitude.

Research is being done on a new class of thin film inorganic oxide

Oxide

An oxide is a chemical compound that contains at least one oxygen atom in its chemical formula. Metal oxides typically contain an anion of oxygen in the oxidation state of −2....

materials, called amorphous heavy-metal cation multicomponent oxides, which could be used to make transparent transistors that are inexpensive, stable, and environmentally benign.

Deposition

The act of applying a thin film to a surface is thin-film deposition - any technique for depositing a thin film of material onto a substrate or onto previously deposited layer

Layer

Layer may refer to:* A layer of archaeological deposits in an excavation* A layer hen, a hen raised to produce eggs* Stratum, a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics...

s. "Thin" is a relative term, but most deposition

Deposition (physics)

Deposition is a process in which gas transforms into solid . The reverse of deposition is sublimation.One example of deposition is the process by which, in sub-freezing air, water vapor changes directly to ice without first becoming a liquid...

techniques control layer thickness within a few tens of nanometre

Nanometre

A nanometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a metre. The name combines the SI prefix nano- with the parent unit name metre .The nanometre is often used to express dimensions on the atomic scale: the diameter...

s. Molecular beam epitaxy

Molecular beam epitaxy

Molecular beam epitaxy is one of several methods of depositing single crystals. It was invented in the late 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories by J. R. Arthur and Alfred Y. Cho.-Method:...

allows a single layer of atom

Atom

The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...

s to be deposited at a time.

It is useful in the manufacture of optics

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

(for reflective

Reflection (physics)

Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two differentmedia so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves...

, anti-reflective coating

Anti-reflective coating

An antireflective or anti-reflection coating is a type of optical coating applied to the surface of lenses and other optical devices to reduce reflection. This improves the efficiency of the system since less light is lost. In complex systems such as a telescope, the reduction in reflections also...

s or self-cleaning glass

Self-cleaning glass

Self-cleaning glass is a specific type of glass with a surface which keeps itself free of dirt and grime.-Introduction:The field of self-cleaning coatings on glass is divided into two categories: hydrophobic and hydrophilic....

, for instance), electronics

Electronics

(layers of insulator

Electrical insulation

thumb|250px|[[Coaxial Cable]] with dielectric insulator supporting a central coreThis article refers to electrical insulation. For insulation of heat, see Thermal insulation...

s, semiconductor

Semiconductor

s, and conductors form integrated circuits), packaging (i.e., aluminium-coated PET film), and in contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

(see the work of Larry Bell

Larry Bell (artist)

Larry Bell is a contemporary American artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California. From 1957 to 1959 he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles as a student of Robert Irwin, Richards Ruben, Robert Chuey, and Emerson Woelfer...

). Similar processes are sometimes used where thickness is not important: for instance, the purification of copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

by electroplating

Electroplating

Electroplating is a plating process in which metal ions in a solution are moved by an electric field to coat an electrode. The process uses electrical current to reduce cations of a desired material from a solution and coat a conductive object with a thin layer of the material, such as a metal...

, and the deposition of silicon

Silicon

Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...

and enriched uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

by a CVD

Chemical vapor deposition

Chemical vapor deposition is a chemical process used to produce high-purity, high-performance solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In a typical CVD process, the wafer is exposed to one or more volatile precursors, which react and/or...

-like process after gas-phase processing.

Deposition techniques fall into two broad categories, depending on whether the process is primarily chemical

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

or physical

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

Chemical deposition

Here, a fluid precursor undergoes a chemical change at a solid surface, leaving a solid layer. An everyday example is the formation of soot on a cool object when it is placed inside a flame. Since the fluid surrounds the solid object, deposition happens on every surface, with little regard to direction; thin films from chemical deposition techniques tend to be conformal
Conformal film
A conformal film defines a morphologically uneven interface with another body and has a thickness that is the same everywhere along the interface. This is undoubtedly an idealization and may be used for abstract or theoretical purposes...

, rather than directional.

Chemical deposition is further categorized by the phase of the precursor:

Plating
Plating
Plating is a surface covering in which a metal is deposited on a conductive surface. Plating has been done for hundreds of years, but it is also critical for modern technology...

relies on liquid precursors, often a solution of water with a salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

of the metal to be deposited. Some plating processes are driven entirely by reagent
Reagent
A reagent is a "substance or compound that is added to a system in order to bring about a chemical reaction, or added to see if a reaction occurs." Although the terms reactant and reagent are often used interchangeably, a reactant is less specifically a "substance that is consumed in the course of...

s in the solution (usually for noble metal
Noble metal
Noble metals are metals that are resistant to corrosion and oxidation in moist air, unlike most base metals. They tend to be precious, often due to their rarity in the Earth's crust...

s), but by far the most commercially important process is electroplating
Electroplating
Electroplating is a plating process in which metal ions in a solution are moved by an electric field to coat an electrode. The process uses electrical current to reduce cations of a desired material from a solution and coat a conductive object with a thin layer of the material, such as a metal...

. It was not commonly used in semiconductor processing for many years, but has seen a resurgence with more widespread use of chemical-mechanical polishing techniques.

Chemical solution deposition (CSD) uses a liquid precursor, usually a solution of organometallic powders dissolved in an organic solvent. This is a relatively inexpensive, simple thin film process that is able to produce stoichiometrically accurate crystalline phases. This technique is also known as the sol-gel method because the 'sol' (or solution) gradually evolves towards the formation of a gel-like diphasic system.

Chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition is a chemical process used to produce high-purity, high-performance solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In a typical CVD process, the wafer is exposed to one or more volatile precursors, which react and/or...

(CVD) generally uses a gas-phase precursor, often a halide
Halide
A halide is a binary compound, of which one part is a halogen atom and the other part is an element or radical that is less electronegative than the halogen, to make a fluoride, chloride, bromide, iodide, or astatide compound. Many salts are halides...

or hydride
Hydride
In chemistry, a hydride is the anion of hydrogen, H−, or, more commonly, a compound in which one or more hydrogen centres have nucleophilic, reducing, or basic properties. In compounds that are regarded as hydrides, hydrogen is bonded to a more electropositive element or group...

of the element to be deposited. In the case of MOCVD
Metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy
Metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy , also known as organometallic vapour phase epitaxy or metalorganic chemical vapour deposition , is a chemical vapour deposition method of epitaxial growth of materials, especially compound semiconductors, from the surface reaction of organic compounds or...

, an organometallic gas is used. Commercial techniques often use very low pressures of precursor gas.
- Plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD) uses an ionized vapor, or plasma
  Plasma (physics)
  In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
  
  , as a precursor. Unlike the soot example above, commercial PECVD relies on electromagnetic means (electric current, microwave
  Microwave
  Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...
  
  excitation), rather than a chemical reaction, to produce a plasma.

Physical deposition

Physical deposition uses mechanical, electromechanical or thermodynamic means to produce a thin film of solid. An everyday example is the formation of frost

Frost

Frost is the solid deposition of water vapor from saturated air. It is formed when solid surfaces are cooled to below the dew point of the adjacent air as well as below the freezing point of water. Frost crystals' size differ depending on time and water vapour available. Frost is also usually...

. Since most engineering materials are held together by relatively high energies, and chemical reactions are not used to store these energies, commercial physical deposition systems tend to require a low-pressure vapor environment to function properly; most can be classified as physical vapor deposition
Physical vapor deposition
Physical vapor deposition is a variety of vacuum deposition and is a general term used to describe any of a variety of methods to deposit thin films by the condensation of a vaporized form of the desired film material onto various workpiece surfaces...

(PVD).

The material to be deposited is placed in an energetic

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, entropic

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

environment, so that particles of material escape its surface. Facing this source is a cooler surface which draws energy from these particles as they arrive, allowing them to form a solid layer. The whole system is kept in a vacuum deposition chamber, to allow the particles to travel as freely as possible. Since particles tend to follow a straight path, films deposited by physical means are commonly directional, rather than conformal.

Examples of physical deposition include:

A thermal evaporator
Evaporation (deposition)
Evaporation is a common method of thin film deposition. The source material is evaporated in a vacuum. The vacuum allows vapor particles to travel directly to the target object , where they condense back to a solid state...

uses an electric resistance heater to melt the material and raise its vapor pressure to a useful range. This is done in a high vacuum, both to allow the vapor to reach the substrate without reacting with or scattering
Scattering
Scattering is a general physical process where some forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or moving particles, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by one or more localized non-uniformities in the medium through which they pass. In conventional use, this also includes deviation of...

against other gas-phase atoms in the chamber, and reduce the incorporation of impurities from the residual gas in the vacuum chamber. Obviously, only materials with a much higher vapor pressure
Vapor pressure
Vapor pressure or equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure of a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases in a closed system. All liquids have a tendency to evaporate, and some solids can sublimate into a gaseous form...

than the heating element
Heating element
A heating element converts electricity into heat through the process of Joule heating. Electric current through the element encounters resistance, resulting in heating of the element....

can be deposited without contamination of the film. Molecular beam epitaxy
Molecular beam epitaxy
Molecular beam epitaxy is one of several methods of depositing single crystals. It was invented in the late 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories by J. R. Arthur and Alfred Y. Cho.-Method:...

is a particularly sophisticated form of thermal evaporation.
- An electron beam evaporator fires a high-energy beam from an electron gun
  Electron gun
  An electron gun is an electrical component that produces an electron beam that has a precise kinetic energy and is most often used in television sets and computer displays which use cathode ray tube technology, as well as in other instruments, such as electron microscopes and particle...
  
  to boil a small spot of material; since the heating is not uniform, lower vapor pressure
  Vapor pressure
  Vapor pressure or equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure of a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases in a closed system. All liquids have a tendency to evaporate, and some solids can sublimate into a gaseous form...
  
  materials can be deposited. The beam is usually bent through an angle of 270° in order to ensure that the gun filament is not directly exposed to the evaporant flux. Typical deposition rates for electron beam evaporation range from 1 to 10 nanometres per second.

Sputtering
Sputtering
Sputtering is a process whereby atoms are ejected from a solid target material due to bombardment of the target by energetic particles. It is commonly used for thin-film deposition, etching and analytical techniques .-Physics of sputtering:...

relies on a plasma (usually a noble gas
Noble gas
The noble gases are a group of chemical elements with very similar properties: under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases, with very low chemical reactivity...

, such as argon
Argon
Argon is a chemical element represented by the symbol Ar. Argon has atomic number 18 and is the third element in group 18 of the periodic table . Argon is the third most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, at 0.93%, making it more common than carbon dioxide...

) to knock material from a "target" a few atoms at a time. The target can be kept at a relatively low temperature, since the process is not one of evaporation, making this one of the most flexible deposition techniques. It is especially useful for compounds or mixtures, where different components would otherwise tend to evaporate at different rates. Note, sputtering's step coverage is more or less conformal.It is also widely used in the optical media. The manufacturing of all formats of CD, DVD, and BD are done with the help of this technique. It is a fast technique and also it provides a good thickness control. Presently, nitrogen and oxygen gases are also being used in sputtering.

Pulsed laser deposition
Pulsed laser deposition
Pulsed laser deposition is a thin film deposition technique where a high power pulsed laser beam is focused inside a vacuum chamber to strike a target of the material that is to be deposited...

systems work by an ablation
Ablation
Ablation is removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes. This occurs in spaceflight during ascent and atmospheric reentry, glaciology, medicine, and passive fire protection.-Spaceflight:...

process. Pulses of focused laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

light vaporize the surface of the target material and convert it to plasma; this plasma usually reverts to a gas before it reaches the substrate.

Cathodic arc deposition
Cathodic Arc Deposition
Cathodic arc deposition or Arc-PVD is a physical vapor deposition technique in which an electric arc is used to vaporize material from a cathode target. The vaporized material then condenses on a substrate, forming a thin film...

(arc-PVD) which is a kind of ion beam deposition
Ion beam deposition
Ion Beam Deposition is a process of applying materials to a target through the application of an ion beam.thumb|Ion beam deposition setup with mass separator...

where an electrical arc is created that literally blasts ions from the cathode. The arc has an extremely high power density
Power density
Power density is the amount of power per unit volume....

resulting in a high level of ionization
Ionization
Ionization is the process of converting an atom or molecule into an ion by adding or removing charged particles such as electrons or other ions. This is often confused with dissociation. A substance may dissociate without necessarily producing ions. As an example, the molecules of table sugar...

(30-100%), multiply charged ions, neutral particles, clusters and macro-particles (droplets). If a reactive gas is introduced during the evaporation process, dissociation
Dissociation
Dissociation is an altered state of consciousness characterized by partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s normal conscious or psychological functioning. Dissociation is most commonly experienced as a subjective perception of one's consciousness being detached from...

, ionization
Ionization
Ionization is the process of converting an atom or molecule into an ion by adding or removing charged particles such as electrons or other ions. This is often confused with dissociation. A substance may dissociate without necessarily producing ions. As an example, the molecules of table sugar...

and excitation
Excited state
Excitation is an elevation in energy level above an arbitrary baseline energy state. In physics there is a specific technical definition for energy level which is often associated with an atom being excited to an excited state....

can occur during interaction with the ion flux and a compound film will be deposited.

Electrohydrodynamic deposition (Electrospray deposition) is a relatively new process of thin film deposition. The liquid to be deposited, either in the form of nano-particle solution or simply a solution, is fed to a small capillary nozzle (usually metallic) which is connected to a high power source. The substrate on which the film has to be deposited is connected to the ground terminal of the power source. Through the influence of electric field, the liquid coming out of the nozzle takes a conical shape (Taylor cone
Taylor cone
A Taylor cone refers to the cone observed in electrospinning, electrospraying and hydrodynamic spray processes from which a jet of charged particles emanates above a threshold voltage...

) and at the apex of the cone a thin jet emanates which disintegrates into very fine and small positively charged droplets under the influence of Rayleigh charge limt. The droplets keep getting smaller and smaller and ultimately get deposited on the substrate as a uniform thin layer.

Other deposition processes

Some methods fall outside these two categories, relying on a mixture of chemical and physical means:

In reactive sputtering
Sputtering
Sputtering is a process whereby atoms are ejected from a solid target material due to bombardment of the target by energetic particles. It is commonly used for thin-film deposition, etching and analytical techniques .-Physics of sputtering:...

, a small amount of some non-noble gas such as oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

or nitrogen
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

is mixed with the plasma-forming gas. After the material is sputtered from the target, it reacts with this gas, so that the deposited film is a different material, i.e. an oxide or nitride of the target material.

In molecular beam epitaxy
Molecular beam epitaxy
Molecular beam epitaxy is one of several methods of depositing single crystals. It was invented in the late 1960s at Bell Telephone Laboratories by J. R. Arthur and Alfred Y. Cho.-Method:...

(MBE), slow streams of an element can be directed at the substrate, so that material deposits one atomic layer at a time. Compounds such as gallium arsenide are usually deposited by repeatedly applying a layer of one element (i.e., gallium
Gallium
Gallium is a chemical element that has the symbol Ga and atomic number 31. Elemental gallium does not occur in nature, but as the gallium salt in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. A soft silvery metallic poor metal, elemental gallium is a brittle solid at low temperatures. As it liquefies...

), then a layer of the other (i.e., As
AS
AS may refer to:-Science and technology:* A. S. , a small French car in the 1920s* A.S. Design, a French car* A. S. , a Dutch truck made in the 1920s to 50s* AS One, a German-build, but Liechtenstein-based sportscar...

), so that the process is chemical, as well as physical. The beam of material can be generated by either physical means (that is, by a furnace
Furnace
A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven.In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace , and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the...

) or by a chemical reaction (chemical beam epitaxy
Chemical beam epitaxy
Chemical beam epitaxy forms an important class of deposition techniques for semiconductor layer systems, especially III-V semiconductor systems. This form of epitaxial growth is performed in an ultrahigh vacuum system. The reactants are in the form of molecular beams of reactive gases, typically...

).

In topotaxy, a specialized technique similar to epitaxy, thin film crystal growth occurs in three dimensions due to the crystal structure similarities (either heterotopotaxy or homotopotaxy
Homotopotaxy
Homotopotaxy is a process similar to homoepitaxy except for the fact that the thin film growth is not limited to two dimensional growth. Here the substrate is the thin film material....

) between the substrate crystal and the growing thin film material.

Thin-film photovoltaic cells

Thin-film technologies are also being developed as a means of substantially reducing the cost of photovoltaic (PV) systems. The rationale for this is that thin-film modules

Photovoltaic module

A solar panel is a packaged, connected assembly of solar cells, also known as photovoltaic cells...

are cheaper to manufacture owing to their reduced material costs, energy costs, handling costs and capital costs. This is especially represented in the use of printed electronics

Printed electronics

Printed electronics is a set of printing methods used to create electrical devices on various substrates. Printing typically uses common printing equipment or other low-cost equipment suitable for defining patterns on material, such as screen printing, flexography, gravure, offset lithography and...

(roll-to-roll) processes.

Thin films belong to the second and third photovoltaic cell generations.

Thin-film batteries

Thin-film printing technology

Printed electronics

is being used to apply solid-state lithium polymers to a variety of substrates

Substrate (printing)

Substrate is a term used in converting process such as printing and Lamination or coating as a more general term to describe the base material onto which e.g. images will be printed and to be laminated as per the packing specification required for the product...

to create unique batteries for specialized applications. Thin-film batteries can be deposited directly onto chips or chip packages in any shape or size. Flexible batteries can be made by printing onto plastic, thin metal foil, or paper.