Fabrication of thin-film, flexible photovoltaic module

A method of producing an elongate, flexible, photovoltaic (PV)-material strip comprising

• providing an elongate, flexible-strip support substrate,
• placing that substrate, in time succession, into different, self-isolated processing chambers, each including roll-to-roll pay-out and take-up structure effective to handle and promote roll-to-roll transport motion of the substrate within that chamber, and
• within each chamber, performing different, time-successive sublayer-creation operations which collectively result in the making of an elongate, roll-contained, flexible, PV-material strip which includes, on at least one elongate face, plural-layer, thin-film PV-cell layer structure.

A method for creating a thin-film, photovoltaic (PV) structure comprising

• providing a flexible, polyimide (PI) substrate, and
• forming on one face in such substrate a thin-film, PV-cell layer structure, which forming includes the vapor-phase creating of (1) a sublayer constructed from one of the combinations consisting of (a) copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS), and (b) copper-indium-diselenide (CIS), with this sublayer having a reception surface, and (2) a sputtered cadmium-sulfide (CdS) sublayer distributed on such reception surface.