Manufacturing apparatus and method for large-scale production of thin-film solar cells
First Claim
1. A method of manufacturing a solar cell, comprising:
- providing a substrate;
depositing a conductive film on a surface of the substrate, wherein the conductive film includes a plurality of discrete layers of conductive materials;
depositing at least one p-type semiconductor absorber layer on the conductive film, wherein the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes a copper indium diselenide (CIS) based alloy material;
depositing an n-type semiconductor layer on the p-type semiconductor absorber layer to form a p-n junction; and
depositing a transparent electrically conductive top contact layer on the n-type semiconductor layer.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method of manufacturing improved thin-film solar cells entirely by sputtering includes a high efficiency back contact/reflecting multi-layer containing at least one barrier layer consisting of a transition metal nitride. A copper indium gallium diselenide (Cu(InXGa1-x)Se2) absorber layer (X ranging from 1 to approximately 0.7) is co-sputtered from specially prepared electrically conductive targets using dual cylindrical rotary magnetron technology. The band gap of the absorber layer can be graded by varying the gallium content, and by replacing the gallium partially or totally with aluminum. Alternately the absorber layer is reactively sputtered from metal alloy targets in the presence of hydrogen selenide gas. RF sputtering is used to deposit a non-cadmium containing window layer of ZnS. The top transparent electrode is reactively sputtered aluminum doped ZnO. A unique modular vacuum roll-to-roll sputtering machine is described. The machine is adapted to incorporate dual cylindrical rotary magnetron technology to manufacture the improved solar cell material in a single pass.
277 Citations
52 Claims
-
1. A method of manufacturing a solar cell, comprising:
-
providing a substrate;
depositing a conductive film on a surface of the substrate, wherein the conductive film includes a plurality of discrete layers of conductive materials;
depositing at least one p-type semiconductor absorber layer on the conductive film, wherein the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes a copper indium diselenide (CIS) based alloy material;
depositing an n-type semiconductor layer on the p-type semiconductor absorber layer to form a p-n junction; and
depositing a transparent electrically conductive top contact layer on the n-type semiconductor layer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A method of manufacturing a solar cell, comprising:
-
providing a substrate;
depositing a conductive film on a surface of the substrate;
depositing at least one p-type semiconductor absorber layer on the conductive film, wherein the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes a copper indium diselenide (CIS) based alloy material, and wherein the deposition of the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes co-sputtering the CIS material from a pair of conductive targets;
depositing an n-type semiconductor layer on the p-type semiconductor absorber layer to form a p-n junction; and
depositing a transparent electrically conductive top contact layer on the n-type semiconductor layer. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
-
-
36. A method of manufacturing a solar cell, comprising:
-
providing a substrate;
depositing a conductive film on a surface of the substrate;
depositing at least one p-type semiconductor absorber layer on the conductive film, wherein the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes a copper indium diselenide (CIS) based alloy material, and wherein the deposition of the p-type semiconductor absorber layer includes reactively AC sputtering material from a pair of identical conductive targets in a sputtering atmosphere comprising argon gas and hydrogen selenide gas;
depositing an n-type semiconductor layer on the p-type semiconductor absorber layer to form a p-n junction; and
depositing a transparent electrically conductive top contact layer on the n-type semiconductor layer. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51)
-
-
52-80. -80. (canceled)
Specification