Mar 11 2010
XsunX Inc., a creator of state-of-the-art thin-film photovoltaic (TFPV) solar cells, has designed an evaporation processing chamber for the production of absorber layer for the Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) solar cells. The chamber uses a unified process to combine a range of thermal evaporation techniques.
Tom Djokovich, CEO of XsunX, reveals that the process chamber design combines several separate operations to facilitate all requisite processes for the creation of the absorber layer of the CIGS. Djokovich adds that the process chamber design is a crucial step that would help XsunX to commercialise its manufacturing process for hybrid CIGS.
XsunX is working on a hybrid cross-industry system that is based on an integrated delivery process by using established automation and material technologies adopted by the Hard Disk (HD) equipment industry. These technologies would be used in XsunX’s small-sized TFPV co-evaporation processes for developing the solar power conversion component of the solar cell or configuring and developing the absorber layer for the solar cell.
The single processing chamber design that combines a number of processing technologies would enable XsunX to verify the adaptability of systems management and material handling technologies relating to the HD domain to the TFPV manufacturing process, according to Robert Wendt, CTO of XsunX. Wendt explains that the chamber is crucial for the commercial manufacture of CIGS solar cells by adopting small-area processing methods.
According to Wendt, the ability to produce commercial quantities of TFPV absorbers would depend on the successful adoption of the co-evaporation process for manufacturing the solar absorbing component of the solar cell, using small-sized substrates or silicon wafer-sized wafers.
Institutes worldwide, such as University of Delaware and Stuttgart in Germany, National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) in the USA, and Institute of Energy Conversion, have also been focusing on the development of co-evaporation technology. These institutes have used co-evaporation techniques to achieve global standard efficiency conversion capabilities.