US Patent Issued to First Solar on July 8 for "Photovoltaic devices with conducting layer interconnects" (Ohio, New York, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,356,732, issued on July 8, was assigned to First Solar Inc. (Tempe, Ariz.).

"Photovoltaic devices with conducting layer interconnects" was invented by Nikhil Bhandari (Perrysbury, Ohio), Matthew Davis (East Rochester, N.Y.), Rhett Miller (San Jose, Calif.) and Charles Wickersham (Perrysburg, Ohio).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "According to the embodiments provided herein, an island in a regular, closed shape is ablated in a first conductive layer. An interconnect is formed through the island, using the island as an alignment fiducial. The island the interconnect are isolated from the remainder of the first conductive layer."

The patent w...