Photovoltaic industry strives to achieve grid parity that can be done by power conversion efficiency increase and fabrication cost reduction.

Light trapping and interface engineering are essential to the performance of photovoltaic (PV) devices. To increase power conversion efficiencies, nearly all solar-cell designs now utilize thin film processing in order to form antireflection coatings, reflective back surfaces, TCO layers, absorber, emitter, light trap-assisting layer, back side field - passivating layer, barriers, windows, metallization, encapsulation, up-converters, etc. Efficiency relies upon a successful charge carriers’ separation (low recombination velocity), which is inversely proportional to the amount of defects, deep traps, dangling bonds, etc. Currently used sputtering or PVD techniques are highly energetic and produce films with pinholes, accumulated growth stresses, compositional variations.

Novel SDN technology can address this challenge at low cost by replacing of currently used high vacuum process line section with easy to fit advanced SDN processing equipment. SDN offer very effective way of replacing highly expensive vacuum methods, which also lack ability to comply with ever evolving PV-device structure and fabrication concept.

Our low cost technology is capable of placing a conformal nano size film with a perfect adhesion to substrate and controlled stoichiometry. It has unprecedented value when microstructure and doping level can be controlled or ternary compounds are deposited or interface engineering is performed. Lack of this technology is currently holding back thin film PV products from being stable, efficient, and sustainable in mass production.

There are several critical PV layers that, when deposited by SDN, demonstrate a substantial device performance enhancement and overall processing cost ($/Wp) savings. PV technology challenges and SDN solutions are briefly described in the article.