Inventions by Berkeley Faculty

The UC Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing is pleased to present these technologies that are currently available for licensing. For more information, please call (510) 643-7201 or email otl-feedback@lists.berkeley.edu.

Improved Heliostat Array for Roof Top Solar Power

Solar power towers (also known as 'central tower' power plants) use arrays of flat, movable mirrors, called heliostats, to focus sunlight on a collector located in the tower to produce electricity. Commercial interests in solar towers and their heliostat arrays has recently increased. In contrast, roof-top solar installations typically use flat, rigid solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity. However, these solar cells are relatively heavy and thick, and consequently they are relatively expensive to manufacture, ship and mount. [read more]

Improved Rankine Solar Heat and Power Generation

Rankine cycle technology has great potential in solar heat and power generation applications. However, its commercial potential could be augmented by increasing the efficiency and lowering the cost of the technology. [read more]

Low Cost, Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Semiconductor Films for Solar Cells and Large Scale Integrated Circuits

In the manufacture of very large scale integrated circuits, polycrystalline-silicon (poly-Si) films are typically formed directly by low- pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) at temperatures above 600C, using silane as the precursor gas. Use of such a high process temperature renders this approach unsuitable for formation of poly-Si films on low-cost glass and plastic substrates and on substrates with completed CMOS integrated circuits. Various other techniques have been attempted, with less than ideal results, toward crystallizing amorphous silicon films without subjecting the material to excessive temperatures for the given application. [read more]