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Sample translations submitted: 1
Japanese to English: HIGH-THROUGHPUT PRINTING OF SEMICONDUCTOR PRECURSOR LAYER FROM INTER-METALLIC MICROFLAKE PARTICLES
Source text - Japanese HIGH-THROUGHPUT PRINTING OF SEMICONDUCTOR PRECURSOR LAYER FROM INTER-METALLIC MICROFLAKE PARTICLES
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to semiconductor films, and more specifically, to the fabrication of solar cells that use semiconductor films based on IB-IIIA-VIA compounds.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Solar cells and solar modules convert sunlight into electricity. These electronic devices have been traditionally fabricated using silicon (Si) as a light-absorbing, semiconducting material in a relatively expensive production process. To make solar cells more economically viable, solar cell device architectures have been developed that can inexpensively make use of thin-film, light-absorbing semiconductor materials such as copper-indium-gallium-sulfo-di-selenide, Cu(In, Ga)(S, Se)2, also termed CI(G)S(S). This class of solar cells typically has a p-type absorber layer sandwiched between a back electrode layer and an n-type junction partner layer. The back electrode layer is often Mo, while the junction partner is often CdS. A transparent conductive oxide (TCO) such as zinc oxide (ZnOx) is formed on the junction partner layer and is typically used as a transparent electrode. CIS-based solar cells have been demonstrated to have power conversion efficiencies exceeding 19%.
A central challenge in cost-effectively constructing a large-area CIGS-based solar cell or module is that the elements of the CIGS layer must be within a narrow stoichiometric ratio on nano-, meso-, and macroscopic length scale in all three dimensions in order for the resulting cell or module to be highly efficient. Achieving precise stoichiometric composition over relatively large substrate areas is, however, difficult using traditional vacuum-based deposition processes. For example, it is difficult to deposit compounds and/or alloys containing more than one element by sputtering or evaporation. Both techniques rely on deposition approaches that are limited to line-of-sight and limited-area sources, tending to result in poor surface coverage. Line-of-sight trajectories and limited-area sources can result in non-uniform three-dimensional distribution of the elements in all three dimensions and/or poor film-thickness uniformity over large areas. These non-uniformities can occur over the nano-, meso-, and/or macroscopic scales. Such non-uniformity also alters the local stoichiometric ratios of the absorber layer, decreasing the potential power conversion efficiency of the complete cell or module.
Alternatives to traditional vacuum-based deposition techniques have been developed. In particular, production of solar cells on flexible substrates using non-vacuum, semiconductor printing technologies provides a highly cost-efficient alternative to conventional vacuum-deposited solar cells. For example, T. Arita and coworkers [20th IEEE PV Specialists Conference, 1988, page 1650] described a non-vacuum, screen printing technique that involved mixing and milling pure Cu, In and Se powders in the compositional ratio of 1:1:2 and forming a screen printable paste, screen printing the paste on a substrate, and sintering this film to form the compound layer. They reported that although they had started with elemental Cu, In and Se powders, after the milling step the paste contained the Cu-In-Se2 phase. However, solar cells fabricated from the sintered layers had very low efficiencies because the structural and electronic quality of these absorbers was poor.
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