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US 8,440,497 B2Granted
Fabricating kesterite solar cells and parts thereof
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsSupratik Guha, Kejia Wang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A Kesterite film is vacuum deposited and annealed on a substrate. Deposition is conducted at low temperature to provide good composition control and efficient use of metals. Annealing is conducted at a high temperature for a short period of time. Thermal evaporation, E-beam evaporation or sputtering in a high vacuum environment may be employed as part of a deposition process.
Claims24
A method comprising:
- providing a substrate;
- subjecting the substrate to a high vacuum environment;
- depositing copper, zinc, tin and at least one of sulfur and selenium on a surface of the substrate in the high vacuum environment by thermal evaporation while maintaining the temperature of the substrate in a sufficiently low range that re-evaporation of the materials deposited on the substrate is not substantial, thereby forming an absorber layer suitable for solar cell applications, and
- annealing the deposited absorber layer on substrate at a second temperature substantially higher than the temperature maintained during the depositing step.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- providing a substrate having a substantially planar surface;
- simultaneously vacuum depositing copper, zinc, tin and at least one of sulfur and selenium on the substantially planar surface of the substrate while maintaining the temperature of the substrate in a sufficiently low range that re-evaporation of the materials deposited on the substrate is not substantial, thereby forming an absorber layer suitable for solar cell applications;
- annealing the vacuum deposited absorber layer on the substrate at a temperature exceeding 300° C. for less than thirty minutes;
- providing an emitter layer on the absorber layer, and
- providing a window layer above the emitter layer.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- providing a substrate having a substantially planar surface;
- maintaining the temperature of the substrate between 100-200° C.;
- vacuum depositing Cu, Zn, Sn and at least one of S and Se on the substantially planar surface of the substrate, thereby forming an absorber layer suitable for solar cell applications on the substantially planar surface, and
- annealing the absorber layer vacuum deposited on the substrate at a temperature between 300-600° C.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.