New OSU solar research center set to open in May

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George Williams, Voxtel CEO

Voxtel Inc. wants to use its expertise in nanotechnology to become a manufacturer of next-generation solar energy cells.

But that’s a capital-intensive endeavor for the Beaverton-based company, a developer of advanced photodetectors that employs 33 people.

“For a small company, we can’t afford a multi-hundred-million-dollar investment,” said George Williams, Voxtel’s CEO.

Instead, Voxtel will be among the Oregon manufacturers planning to make use of a new solar energy manufacturing research center opening in May at Oregon State University.

The focus of the Oregon Process Innovation Center for Sustainable Solar Cell Manufacturing is to research new methods of making photovoltaic cells in ways that can drive down the cost of manufacturing.

In particular, university researchers will study advancements in thin-film technology — in which a thin layer of photovoltaic film is layered onto a piece of glass.

“We’re trying to get the thin film solar cells to be more competitive by making costs lower and improving performance,” said Greg Herman, an associate professor of chemical engineering at OSU and associate director of the center.

The center — which has received $2.7 million in funding, mostly from a three-year U.S. Department of Energy grant — will include a collaboration among more than 20 researchers from OSU, the University of Oregon, Portland State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

But it’s more than an academic research lab. The center is designed to be an economic development engine, making its equipment and capabilities available to Oregon manufacturers in need of the research and development capacity.

That could prove to be a critical service in a state where more and more manufacturers of all sizes are dipping their toes into the fast-growing solar energy market.

“For a small company, it doesn’t make sense to buy a $500,000 piece of equipment you need to use for a few days a year,” said David Kenney, executive director of the Oregon Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center, which supplied the initial $232,000 investment to the center.

A Tektronix Inc. spinoff founded in 1999, Voxtel specializes in making photodetectors, devices that convert light into electronic signals.

While most of their work is used in military applications, the company wants to leverage its capabilities into photovoltaic products.

The goal is to develop flexible thin-film solar cells using nanocrystals, printed like ink onto a plastic surface.

The new OSU solar manufacturing research center will allow Voxtel to develop a manufacturing prototype, enhancing its ability to bring the product to market.

“There’s no way a small company like ours could reasonably go to market without this type of facility,” Williams said. “With this capability, we can have a direct path to market without having to set up a collaboration of five or six companies all with a small part of it.”

Herman said the center will work with manufacturers on melding the new manufacturing research into their operations.

“What we’re doing is having a lab available for both the university researchers as well as industrial partners to evaluate the integrating of the work we’re doing with their technologies,” he said.