Organic photovoltaics (OPV) are thought to be one of the key markets where printed electronics will thrive. In essence, the ability to print OPV systems utilizing organic materials has clear benefits in terms of cost and production, and there has been tremendous research conducted in the field.

Not surprisingly, the Cavendish Lab of Cambridge University has been home to much of this ground-breaking research. Cambridge has been the center of numerous PE developments, most notably Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic on the display side. Cambridge University has also been active on the OPV front.

That is where Eight19 comes in. Eight19 (named after the 8 minutes and 19 seconds it takes sunlight to reach Earth) is a 2010 spin-out from the university’s Optoelectronics Group in the Physics Department, which is world-renowned for its research in the field of plastic electronics. Eight19 is focusing its efforts on printed flexible plastic solar technology using organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology, which has applications in a wide variety of products ranging from off-grid applications in emerging economies to high volume industrial products.

Professors Sir Richard Friend, Henning Sirringhaus and Neil Greenham are the academic founders of Eight19, and the company has been progressing rapidly since its beginnings last year.

“Eight19 grew out from Prof. Sir Richard Friend’s team at the Cavendish Lab of Cambridge University,” said Simon Bransfield-Garth, chief executive of Eight19 Ltd. “The university team won a national competition sponsored by the Carbon Trust, which led to a two-year technology proving project. The project exceeded its original goals, and it was this technical basis that led to the spin-out of the company in September 2010 with investment from the Carbon Trust and French specialist chemicals company, Rhodia.”

Bransfield-Garth said that the knowledge developed on the processing side at the Cavendish Lab helps set Eight19 apart from other companies.

“The foundation of the company is the technical knowledge obtained from the work at the University of Cambridge,” Bransfield-Garth said. “This enables us to use novel device architectures and processing techniques to enable volume manufacture. The company took the decision in the early days to avoid both spin coating and glass processing and to work from the outset on plastic films. This is more challenging to begin with but pays dividends in the mid-term as it forces the development of efficient, high speed manufacturing processes based on advanced printing and coating techniques.”

Bransfield-Garth said that Eight19 is presently in the development phase as the company implements its reel-to-reel solar cell manufacturing technology at their Cambridge facility.

“Printed plastic solar cells have many potential applications, from small ultra low power light harvesting devices such as remote sensors to large scale building integrated applications, for instance in semi-transparent, colored architectural glass. One of the most interesting is the rapidly growing emerging markets where the low cost, flexibility and inherent robustness of the cells makes them ideal for modest size but high volume off-grid applications,” Bransfield-Garth added.

Bransfield-Garth said that printing and coating techniques of many forms are at the heart of what Eight19 does.

“There is no ‘silver bullet’ to making plastic solar cells,” he added. “Rather, it is a series of many optimized steps to create uniform layers of the correct materials at high speed and with high reliability. This involves a variety of techniques to deposit and dry each of the layers in turn to build up a device. Eight19 is developing a manufacturing capability in the UK to create printed plastic solar cells.”

The company’s relationship with Cambridge is strong; Eight19 and the university have signed an IP agreement, in which Eight19 licensed core IP from Cambridge and acquires the right for a defined period to exclusively license patents created by key researchers at the university.

“The foundation of the company’s work was the research that was undertaken in the university,” Bransfield-Garth said. “Now the company is rapidly developing its own IP in device design and volume manufacturing processes. However, fundamental developments are occurring all the time and the Cambridge University team is one of the world leaders in this space. The agreement with the university gives the company direct access to this IP and provides the university with a route to commercialization of the large body of knowledge that is developed there.”

Bransfield-Garth said that Eight19 has already created some excellent opportunities in its first year of existence.

“Eight19 was formed in September 2010 and so it still in the ramp-up phase,” Bransfield-Garth said. “However, the feedback from the market so far has been very encouraging. Printing techniques offer the potential for a much lower cost manufacturing processes than that used for conventional solar cells because they use no high temperature or vacuum processes. This allows devices to be fabricated with lower cost plant, using less energy per device at higher speeds than using conventional semiconductor processing. Combining this with the inherent flexibility and low weight makes it an exciting product offer, particularly for high growth emerging markets where both unit cost and resilience to day-to-day wear are important product features.

“Eight19 sees an exciting future for products made using advanced printing and coating techniques,” Bransfield-Garth concluded. “Devices such as printed solar cells have demanding requirements on film thickness, tolerances and registration accuracy, which will stretch the boundaries of existing techniques, but the benefits in terms of product throughput and reductions in manufacturing costs will enable a new generation of manufacturing techniques that will open up new markets.”