Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Triple-junction amorphous silicon alloy PV manufacturing plant of 5 MW annual capacity

Conference ·
OSTI ID:304331
; ;  [1]
  1. United Solar Systems Corp., Troy, MI (United States); and others
A spectral-splitting, triple-junction a-Si alloy solar cell processor has been designed, built and optimized. A roll-to-roll process has been used to deposit two layers of back reflector, a triple-cell structure with nine layers of a-Si and a-SiGe alloys and a single layer of antireflection coating consecutively on a half-a-mile roll of stainless steel. The coated web is next slabbed and processed to make a variety of products. The design of the machine and processes used incorporate several key features developed for improving cell efficiency. In order to reduce manufacturing cost, higher deposition rates and thinner cells than are used in R and D have been used. The back reflector also consists of Al/ZnO rather than Ag/ZnO. Large-scale production has begun, and products are being shipped for a wide range of applications.
Sponsoring Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
OSTI ID:
304331
Report Number(s):
CONF-970953--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English