Technology Support for Initiation of High-Throughput Processing of Thin-Film CdTe PV Modules: Phase II Technical Report, 14 March 1996 - 13 March 1997

Research at Solar Cells, Inc. (SCI) is focused on developing processes that will lead to high-volume and low-cost manufacturing of solar cells and will increase the performance of SCI's present technology. The process research has focused on developing vapor-transport deposition of the semiconductors, eliminating wet-chemistry steps while minimizing the chloride treatment time, forming a low-lossback contact using only dry processing, and creating an improved interconnection technique. The performance improvement work has focused on increasing the photocurrent by a combination of more-transparent glass substrates and a thinner CdS window layer deposited on an i- SnO2 buffer layer. SCI's record 13.0%, 1-cm2 devices have been fabricated using these techniques. Stability monitoringcontinues and shows minimal degradation for more than 20,000 hours of continuous light-soak at 0.8-sun illumination.;