Experimental development of new films for renewable energies – DEFIER 2

The project DEFIER (a French word meaning «to challenge ») stands for Développements Expérimentaux de Films Innovants pour les Energies Renouvelables, translated in English as Experimental developments of innovative films for renewable energies. More precisely it is devoted to the solar cells and energy storage. Energy is one of the main research topic in the IMN laboratory, implying more than one half of the researchers. It is also an important field of development of the ARMOR company, with a large part of investments. IMN provides its scientific knowledge, its expertise in elaboration and characterization of materials. ARMOR is a world leader in ink formulation and thermal printing. The collaboration opens new opportunities for the development and use of new materials coming from IMN and allows access to industrial processes.
During the first years of the Joint Laboratory, strategies and views on R&D have been combined. The efficiency of the new organization has been proved by important scientific and technological progress, mainly in the performances of current collectors for batteries and transparent conductors for organic solar cells. It allows also the use of vapor phase techniques for thin films in these cells. A common equipment has been installed for battery preparation and testing. Fruitful discussions opened the roadmap to basic research on thin films technology and organic batteries. Nevertheless, in the coming 18 months, the main part of the power for the reinforcement of the Joint Laboratory will be devoted the current collectors and transparent conductors.