Combinatorial screening of transparent conductive oxide materials for solar applications
AssigneeIntermolecular, Inc.
InventorsZhi-Wen Sun, Nitin Kumar, Guizhen Zhang, Nikhil Kalyankar, Minh Anh Nguyen
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Abstract
Embodiments of the current invention include methods of improving a process of forming a textured TCO film by combinatorial methods. The combinatorial method may include depositing a TCO by physical vapor deposition or sputtering, annealing the TCO, and etching the TCO where at least one of the depositing, the annealing, or the etching is performed combinatorially. Embodiments of the current invention also include improved methods of forming the TCO based on the results of combinatorial testing.
Claims20
A combinatorial method, comprising:
- depositing a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) by physical vapor deposition, wherein depositing the TCO comprises a site-isolated deposition to form site-isolated regions on a single substrate through the physical vapor deposition, each site isolated region having a substantially uniform composition;
- annealing the TCO;
- forming a molecular masking layer on the TCO the molecular mask allowing for differential texturing, wherein forming the molecular masking layer comprises applying an etching formulation to the surface of the TCO;
- and
- etching the TCO to provide a textured surface that scatters light incident upon the textured surface, wherein at least one of the depositing, the annealing or the etching is performed combinatorially.
A method of forming a solar substrate, comprising:
- depositing a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) comprising a substantially uniform zinc oxide layer on a substrate by physical vapor deposition (PVD) at a temperature of less than 250° C.;
- annealing the TCO at a temperature of greater than 200° C.;
- forming a molecular masking layer on the TCO the molecular mask allowing for differential texturing, wherein forming the molecular masking layer comprises applying an etching formulation to the surface of the TCO;
- and
- etching the TCO to provide a textured surface that scatters light incident upon the textured surface;
- depositing an optical conversion layer configured to transform incident light into electrical energy over the textured surface of the TCO;
- and
- depositing a conductive material over the optical conversion layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.