Bruker BioSpin will provide the world’s first commercial millimetre-wave 263-gigahertz EPR spectrometer for use at Berlin’s Helmholtz-Zentrum. The facility conducts pioneering research into new EPR applications in solar energy and photovoltaics.

Bruker BioSpin’s ELEXSYS™ E780 system incorporates a unique superconducting magnet that can be ramped up to 12 Tesla, and when combined with new EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) probe technology for optimum sensitivity, can measure even large samples up to 5 millimetres.

The system to be installed at the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Berlin is valued at more than $2.2 million (US), and was supported by the recent German stimulus package “Konjunkturpaket.” It represents the start of a new research collaboration project between Bruker and the Helmholtz-Zentrum on EPR probe development for electrical detection.

“This novel and unique commercial E780 system greatly expands the range of applications in very high-field EPR,” said Dieter Schmalbein, managing director of Bruker BioSpin.

“With this new instrument we will be able to identify important details about the structure of defects in thin-film silicon solar cells,” added Klaus Lips from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, the coordinator of the German research network EPR-Solar.

Tags: photovoltaics