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Investigation of gold as material for thermal radiation shielding

dc.contributor.authorMunshi, Amit Harenkumar, author
dc.contributor.authorSampath, Walajabad, advisor
dc.contributor.authorKirkpatrick, Allan, committee member
dc.contributor.authorSites, James, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2007-01-03T05:29:32Z
dc.date.available2007-01-03T05:29:32Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.description.abstractCdS/CdTe thin film solar cells technology is one of the fastest growing carbon neutral energy sources in the world today. Manufacturing of CdS/CdTe solar modules is carried out at temperature in the range of 620°C under a vacuum of 40 millitorr using a Heated Pocket Deposition (HPD) system in the materials engineering laboratory. Since this system operates in vacuum, majority of the heat loss is due to thermal radiation. The concept here is to conserve the heat by reflecting the infrared radiation back into the deposition system thus increasing the thermal efficiency. Various metals may be used but calculations show that using a Gold thin film mirror can effectively reflect almost 97% of the incident radiation, thus conserving energy required for the manufacturing process. However, a phenomenon called thermal grooving or island formation inhibits its use. Thermal grooving occurs when the stress concentration at the grain boundaries causes grain separation. This phenomenon is observed in thin gold films that are exposed to a temperature in excess of 350°C for over 3 to 5 hours. In this study, these films are exposed to temperature up to 620°C for cycles as long as 200 hours. The goal of this research is to explore the solutions for elimination of the phenomenon of thermal grooving and thus extract maximum life out of these thin gold films for conservation of heat. After carefully exploring literature on past research and conducting experiments it was found that within the range of the films that were tested, a 2000 A° film with a 150 A° of Indium underlay showed the best performance after thermal annealing and testing.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierMunshi_colostate_0053N_11662.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10217/79125
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectcadmium telluride cadmium sulfide
dc.subjectenergy conservation
dc.subjectgold
dc.subjectindium
dc.subjectradiation shielding
dc.subjectthin films
dc.titleInvestigation of gold as material for thermal radiation shielding
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineMechanical Engineering
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (M.S.)

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