System for improving solar cell manufacturing yield
AssigneesSilevo China Co., Ltd., Silevo, Inc.
InventorsJiunn Benjamin Heng, Chunguang Xiao, Dongzhi Yan, Jiansheng Zhou, Zhiquan Huang, Zheng Xu
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Abstract
A system is described for fabricating photovoltaic structures. The system can include a photovoltaic cell enclosure that communicatively couples a first processing station and a second processing station while providing a microenvironment for a plurality of photovoltaic cells. The microenvironment can be separated from a surrounding environment. Furthermore, a microenvironment controller can control density of at least one chemical that could contaminate or react with an oxide layer on a respective photovoltaic cell, thereby protecting the photovoltaic cell between processes.
Claims20
A system, the system comprising:
- a substrate enclosure that communicatively couples a first processing station and a second processing station, the substrate enclosure comprising a microenvironment for storing a plurality of processed substrates, wherein the microenvironment is separated from a surrounding environment and has an absolute humidity that is lower than 5 g/kg;
- and
- a microenvironment controller configured to control density of at least one chemical that can contaminate or react with an oxide layer on a respective substrate, thereby protecting the substrate between processes.
(canceled)
A system, the system comprising:
- a first processing station configured to process a substrate in a first processing step;
- a second processing station configured to process the substrate in a second processing step;
- a substrate enclosure that communicatively couples the first processing station and the second processing station, thereby providing a microenvironment for storing a plurality of processed substrates, wherein the microenvironment is separated from a surrounding environment and has an absolute humidity that is lower than 5 g/kg;
- and
- a microenvironment controller configured to control density of at least one chemical that can contaminate or react with an oxide layer on the substrate, thereby protecting the substrate between processes.
A photovoltaic cell enclosure that communicatively couples a first processing station and a second processing station, the enclosure comprising:
- a housing that provides a microenvironment to protect a photovoltaic cell that has at least one surface of a base layer exposed, wherein the microenvironment is separated from a surrounding environment and has an absolute humidity that is lower than 5 g/kg;
- and
- a microenvironment controller configured to control density of at least one chemical that can contaminate or react with an oxide layer on the photovoltaic cell, thereby protecting the photovoltaic cell between processes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.