Fabrication of a-Si Solar Cells With RF- and MW-PECVD

Roll-to-roll production technology specifically designed to produce thin film Si solar cells should lead to a significant reduction of the module production costs. At ECN we developed a roll-to-roll Si coating system which contains novel, linear RF sources for the deposition of n- and p-type silicon layers and linear MW sources for the deposition of intrinsic silicon layers. The quality and uniformity of doped and intrinsic silicon layers that are grown by these linear plasma sources are discussed. The layer quality confirms that the RF and MW sources in the roll-to-roll coater are suitable for the growth of micromorph Si solar cells. Preliminary results on amorphous silicon solar cells are presented with an initial efficiency of 4.4%.