ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,568,709, issued on March 3, was assigned to TONGWEI SOLAR (CHENGDU) Co. LTD. (Chengdu, China).

"Conductive layer and preparation method therefor, and solar cell" was invented by Lei Xu (Hefei, China), Jianfeng Xue (Hefei, China), Kesheng Wei (Hefei, China) and Jin Wang (Hefei, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A conductive layer, comprising a first TCO layer, a second TCO layer, a third TCO layer and a fourth TCO layer which are stacked. The first TCO layer is prepared in a first atmosphere, and the first atmosphere is a mixed gas of argon and hydrogen; the second TCO layer is prepared in a second atmosphere, the second atmosphere is ...