The San Jose company, founded in 2002, makes solar panels using copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar cells.
Many optical components are typically constructed using materials such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.
About 50 km away are the lead ores that indium was first produced from.
And analysts are warning that global supplies of indium could be exhausted as soon as 2017.
Indium is leached from slag and dust of zinc production and the metal further purified by electrolysis.
FORBES: 14% Efficiency for Thin-Film Solar Cells, but Where Will the Indium Come From?
The three main types of thin film technologies use cadmium-telluride, copper-indium-gallium-selenide and amorphous-silicon to convert sunlight into electricity.
FORBES: First Solar Struggles Amid Decline Of Thin-Film Solar Market
Recycling of indium along with other rare metals (3) will also prove pivotal.
FORBES: 14% Efficiency for Thin-Film Solar Cells, but Where Will the Indium Come From?
Tests have shown Cambrios material beats the best known material used today called indium-tin-oxide, or ITO, and costs less.
FORBES: High-tech MIT spin-out Cambrios teams on Touch Screen Breakthrough
Which is where those claiming that indium will run out are going wrong.
Bits of gold add value to almost anything, high indium values increase the worth of zinc ore and so on.
FORBES: An Odd Thought: Thorium Reactors Would Make Tantalum And Rare Earths Cheaper
Solar CIS, which stands for copper, indium and selenium, are solar photovoltaic (PV) modules that leverage the latest developments in thin-film technology.
For metals such as hafnium and indium, recycling is the only way to extend the lifetime of critical sectors of the electronics industry.
FORBES: Recycling Scrap Rare Metals Vital to Future Technologies
Sol Voltaics uses data from its indium phosphide nanowire research to project that its gallium arsenide nanowires will deliver a 25% efficiency gain.
FORBES: A Swedish Solar Startup's Nanowires Promise To Deliver A Big Energy Boost
Get the indium price up high enough and those lead mines will reopen and replace lead production from mines with lower indium content.
Its indium phosphide chips are already the world's fastest, with speeds of up to 150 gigahertz, or eight times that of similar silicon devices.
It has been estimated on the basis of the amount of indium in zinc ore stocks, there is a world reserve base of 6, 000 tonnes.
FORBES: 14% Efficiency for Thin-Film Solar Cells, but Where Will the Indium Come From?
IBM's approach is based on a process developed by IBM Research to crank out so-called thin-film solar cells based on copper, indium, gallium and selenide.
Igzo (indium gallium zinc oxide) screens have higher translucency than standard TFT (thin film transistor) LCDs, meaning they are better at letting light pass through them.
BBC: HTC and Sharp unveil devices with next-generation screens
While improvements in the CIGS panel efficiencies can be expected, there is the matter of accessing the materials themselves, from which they are made, most immediately indium.
FORBES: 14% Efficiency for Thin-Film Solar Cells, but Where Will the Indium Come From?
Without getting you mired in technobabble, let's just say that indium tin oxide (ITO) has generally been a mainstay in every single OLED that was produced commercially.
ENGADGET: Resin replaces ITO in latest flexible OLED prototype
Prior to the FDA action, patients were required to get an infusion of rituximab the first day, followed by a pre-treatment diagnostic dose of radiolabeled indium-111 Zevalin.
FORBES: Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Gets Lift from FDA Action On One Of Its Cancer Treatments
The two researchers built their transistors by coating both sides of a sheet of paper with semiconductors made of oxides of zinc, gallium and indium, rather than silicon.
With its patented InGaP-Plus (Indium Gallium Phosphide) technology, Anadigics may have leapfrogged over its AlGaAs (Aluminum Gallium Arsenide) competitors by enabling some 20% to 25% longer cell phone battery life.
For the first time in the United States, the company is showcasing the amazing possibilities of IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) and introducing the first new products that use it.
Today, Intermolecular announced an ongoing project with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia for the enhancement of copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) thin film solar manufacturing technology.
FORBES: Intermolecular's Solar Strategy Rising During Industry Eclipse
At nearly 14%, the efficiency of the thin-film panels which are made from copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS), is close to that of silicon, albeit being much cheaper to produce.
FORBES: 14% Efficiency for Thin-Film Solar Cells, but Where Will the Indium Come From?
There are a number of metals that we get as by products of other mining processes already: gallium from alumina production, germanium from lead and zinc, indium from the same sources.
FORBES: Making Anti-Malaria Drugs From the Wastes of Producing Anti-Malaria Drugs
That is about 50 times the abundance of tellurium which we looked at here and that therefore means that we have some 6 billion tonnes of indium to play with.
At its event, Sharp shared more details of its "Igzo" technology - which stands for Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide, a compound material that is said to be more responsive to touch.
应用推荐