Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115

Production technology for amorphous

silicon-based #exible solar cells
Yukimi Ichikawa*, Takashi Yoshida, Toshio Hama,
Hiroshi Sakai, Kouichi Harashima
Solar Cell Project Ozce, Fuji Electric Corporate Research and Development, Ltd., 2-2-1 Nagasaka, Yokosuka,
Kanagawa 240-0194, Japan

Abstract

We have developed a-Si-based solar cells with plastic "lm substrate and achieved a stabilized
e$ciency of 9% in a 40 cm;80 cm cell. The structure and fabrication process of #exible solar
cells are presented. Then we discuss the merits and demerits of our process from the viewpoint
of mass production, and clarify that the SCAF cell has a good adaptability to mass produc-
tion.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Amorphous silicon solar cell; Plastic "lm substrate; Amorphous silicon germanium; Mass
production technology

1. Introduction

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si)-based solar cells are expected to provide

low-cost photovoltaic (PV) modules. To make it real, however, a large-scale produc-
tion is an essential requirement. To cope with the requirement, we have to develop
a practical technology to produce high-e$ciency solar cells by a simpli"ed process
with high throughput and high production yield. The solution for that is not unique.
Various research groups have developed their own device structures and processes
according to their own strategies. From the viewpoint of mass production, however, it
is considered that the present production technology of a-Si solar cells has not
reached a practical level yet.

* Corresponding author. Fax: 81-468-57-6730.

E-mail address: ichikawa-yukimi@fujielectric.co.jp (Y. Ichikawa).

0927-0248/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 7 - 0 2 4 8 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 3 - X
108 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of SCAF solar cell.

Our approach at Fuji Electric to a practical mass production is to develop

a simpli"ed process based on a roll-to-roll apparatus by adopting a #exible substrate.
In this production process, we can employ a roll of plastic "lm as a substrate. The
roll-to-roll process is very advantageous to vacuum processes such as plasma CVD
and sputtering because the reactors are maintained under vacuum until completion of
processing a roll. This results in improvement in throughput and reproducibility
compared with the conventional batch processes.
In this paper, we will present the status of the production technologies for our
#exible a-Si solar cells and discuss their adaptability to mass production.

2. Present status of 6exible solar cells

2.1. Structure and fabrication process technology

What we tried was to "nd a new breakthrough technology for low-cost mass
production with plastic "lm substrates. We have succeeded in developing a new
monolithic structure named series-connection through apertures formed on "lm
(SCAF) as shown in Fig. 1 [1]. In this structure, a substrate-type a-Si : H-based solar
cell is fabricated on heat-resisting plastic "lms such as poly-imide.
The entire process for SCAF cell production is schematically shown in Fig. 2. To
complete the SCAF solar cell, we need only four processes, and all the apparatuses
used are based on roll-to-roll processes. First, holes are made on the plastic "lm by
a punching unit and then the substrate is cleaned by a cleaning unit in a pretreatment
apparatus. After that, the roll is transferred to a roll-to-roll sputtering apparatus to
deposit metal electrodes. Then the pretreated "lm-substrate roll is set in an apparatus
composed of plasma CVD reactors and sputtering reactors to deposit the a-Si layers,
the transparent electrode and back-side electrode. This apparatus is named stepping-
roll (SR) deposition apparatus and developed especially for the SCAF solar cells (see
 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115 109

Fig. 2. Fabrication process #ow for SCAF cell production.

Ref. [2] for the details). Finally, the layers formed on both surfaces of the "lm are
laser-scribed to make unit cells by a roll-to-roll laser-scriber.
The fabrication process for the SCAF solar cell presented here is further simpli"ed
compared with that for the glass substrate solar cells. Moreover, since all the process
units are based on roll-to-roll systems, it is easy to construct an automated production
line with these processes.
110 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115

Fig. 3. Variation of photovoltaic characteristics of a-SiGe single-junction cells as a function of H dilution


ratio of raw material gas for ith layer deposition under light-soaking condition.

To brush up the developed process and improve the performance of SCAF cells, we
have carried out trial production of 40 cm;80 cm SCAF cells. The present SCAF cell
was designed to generate an optimum output voltage of about 200 V for the a-Si/a-Si
tandem structure; to generate this voltage, 152 unit cells were connected in series. The
reason for generating high voltages is to raise usability of the SCAF solar cell as well
as to avoid the joule loss due to high current. With this, we obtained a stabilized
aperture-area e$ciency of 8.1% in a 40 cm;80 cm SCAF solar cell.

2.2. Improvement in conversion ezciency by adopting a-Si/a-SiGe tandem structure

For further improvement in e$ciency, we have applied a-SiGe alloy to the bottom
cell. To search an optimum fabrication condition for the bottom cell, we fabricated
substrate-type single-junction a-SiGe solar cells on Ag-coated Asahi U SnO glass

substrate. With these solar cells, we have optimized the "lm thickness, process
temperature, gas mixture ratio and so on for each layer. In the experiments, the optical
gap of the a-SiGe ith layer was kept at 1.5 eV, and its thickness was 120 nm.
As an example of the obtained data, the e!ect of hydrogen dilution of the raw
material gases on the stabilized e$ciency of the a-SiGe solar cells (1 cm) is shown in
Fig. 3. This "gure shows the photovoltaic characteristics of the a-SiGe single-junction
 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115 111

Fig. 4. Initial and stabilized I}V curves of a-SiGe SCAF solar cell (40 cm;80 cm).

cells as a function of H /SiH ratio for ith layer deposition for the initial and after
 
light-soaking of 12 and 300 h. The gas #ow rate for GeH was adjusted to provide

a 1.5 eV material for each dilution condition. Though the initial e$ciency did not vary
in the range of H /SiH ratio from 10 to 40, the photo-degraded e$ciency increased
 
with increasing H /SiH ratio, and an e$ciency of 8.3% was obtained at an H /SiH
   
ratio of 40 after light-soaking.
The developed fabrication conditions were transferred to the deposition process for
the SR apparatus to fabricate a-Si/a-SiGe SCAF structure cells of 40 cm;80 cm. As
a result, we obtained a stabilized e$ciency of 9.0% with an initial e$ciency of 10.1%
in aperture-area as shown in Fig. 4. [3,4].
The reproducibility of the production process is one of the most important issues.
To con"rm that for the a-Si/a-SiGe SCAF cell, we carried out several trial produc-
tions. Fig. 5 shows an example of those results; it shows the initial performance of 23
a-Si/a-SiGe SCAF cells formed successively on a "lm roll under the same deposition
condition. From this result, it is demonstrated that our process has a very high
reproducibility.

3. Adaptability of SCAF solar cells to mass production

The SCAF solar cell and the fabrication process for it are quite distinctive from
other a-Si-based solar cells as mentioned in the previous section. In this section, the
advantage of SCAF solar cell will be discussed with a view to the adaptability to the
future mass production.
112 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115

Fig. 5. Scatter of initial performances of 23 a-SiGe SCAF solar cells.

3.1. Important issues for mass production

In developing the production technologies for a-Si-based solar cells, at least the
following items should be taken into account:
(1) Conversion e$ciency.
(2) Throughput.
(3) Production yield.

Here, we discuss the meaning of these items.

(1) Conversion ezciency: The stabilized e$ciencies of recent a-Si-based laboratory
cells reported are as high as 10% in aperture-area e$ciency. However, those of
commercially available cells are 8% or lower. The discrepancy is mainly due to the
lack of production technology. In laboratory solar cells, a number of sophisticated
technologies are applied, but some are hard to transfer to the production lines. Thus,
an important matter is that the process to be developed must have su$cient functions
accepting those technologies.
(2) Throughput: Improvement in throughput of each production process unit or
apparatus results in reduction of equipment cost and labor cost. In particular, that of
"lm deposition apparatus is very important since it occupies a large proportion of the
total equipment cost. Some consideration is needed before that can be overcome.
 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115 113

(3) Production yield: Production yield is an important key for the mass production
because the cost is in inverse proportion to the yield. We have to consider two kinds of
yield; one is related to the scatter in performance of fabricated solar cells, and the
other is related to the probability of trouble generation causing the process down, in
other words the durability of apparatuses. In the roll-to-roll process, the latter is
a serious problem once it occurs, because all the cells in a roll have to be thrown away,
and the yield is drastically decreased.

3.2. Adaptability of SCAF cell fabrication process to mass production

Here, we discuss the adaptability of our process to the future mass production with
regard to the three items discussed above.
(1) Conversion ezciency: To improve the e$ciency of mass-produced solar cells, the
technologies developed in laboratories should be easily applicable to the production
line. Our stepping-roll "lm deposition apparatus consisting of multi-reactors has both
the merit of a roll-to-roll machine and that of an in-line batch system. In principle, the
conventional roll-to-roll deposition apparatus has several problems. For instance,
isolation of raw material gases among reactors is not perfect in an in-line multi-
reactor system. As a result, interdi!usion of material gases is not avoidable, and
also the gas pressures and the deposition rates are not chosen for each reactor
independently. In addition, it is very di$cult to make band-pro"led ith layers or
graded gap bu!er layers. These di$culties form barriers to improvement in solar cell
e$ciency.
In the stepping-roll apparatus, on the other hand, each reactor is isolated from the
others during "lm depositions. Thus, deposition conditions developed in laboratories
are perfectly transferable to production lines.
(2) Throughput: To improve the throughput, roll-to-roll processes are very e!ective.
Since all the processes we developed are based on that, the throughput for each
process is essentially quite high. Among the processes, however, a barrier for the
future mass production of a-Si solar cells would be the a-Si "lm deposition process.
A general approach to raise the throughput is to increase the "lm deposition rate. It is,
however, commonly known that the stabilized e$ciency is lessened when the depos-
ition rate increases only twice or three times compared with the standard deposition
condition (0.1}0.2 nm/s); this is one of the major reasons for existing the discrepancy
between laboratory and production cells.
Another approach for improving that is to increase the number of plasma CVD
chambers. In the conventional in-line CVD apparatus for glass substrate, each
chamber has to be equipped with a mechanism for transporting substrates. On the
other hand, our apparatus requires no transportation system in each chamber,
because the "lm substrate is transported and controlled by a winder and an un-
winder placed at both ends of the apparatus. Thus, the cost of a plasma CVD chamber
is much lower than that of the others. Moreover, in the SR apparatus, extension
of apparatus is much easier than that of the conventional roll-to-roll apparatus
because the same chamber can be simply added to increase the number of CVD
reactors.
114 Y. Ichikawa et al. / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 66 (2001) 107}115

Another advantage of increasing the number of reactors is that the frequency of

reactor cleaning diminishes because the duty of "lm deposition in each reactor
required for fabricating a cell is reduced. This results in the improvement of operation
time of the apparatus.
To produce high-e$ciency solar cells, the substrate temperature during "lm depos-
ition is an important parameter, and usually each a-Si layer has its own optimized
temperature. As the heat capacity of thin plastic "lms is much smaller than glass
substrates, the "lm temperature instantly reaches a required value for each reactor. It
is also an excellent feature of our process.
(3) Production yield: A key to improve the production yield is reproducibility of
the process. We already showed in Fig. 5 that the scatter of e$ciency of the SCAF
cells fabricated under the same condition is smaller than $2% of the average
value. We believe that it is mainly due to employment of the roll-to-roll processes.
With this, a good homogeneity in "lm properties is readily obtained in an entire "lm
roll.
A demerit of the roll-to-roll process is the di$culty of "nding substandard cells
during the processing. If unexpected troubles occur and they are not found through
the process, all the fabricated cells in a roll may become substandard ones. To avoid
this situation, e!ective process monitoring systems should be developed. We are now
developing these technologies.

4. Conclusions

We discussed the features of our SCAF solar cells from the viewpoint of mass
production. In this regard , we believe that the process for SCAF cells has an excellent
adaptability to mass production. Development of the production technologies is now
in the "nal stage, and we will complete it in a couple of years for high-e$ciency #exible
a-Si solar cell production.

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to K. Tabuchi, S. Fujikake, M. Tanda, H. Sato,

S. Saito of Fuji Electric Corp. R&D for their assistance and helpful discussions. The
research described here was supported by New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization as a part of New Sunshine Program of The Ministry of
International Trade and Industry.

References

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