Sensor Systems Improve Solar Panel Production Efficiencies
Capacitec Inc. has entered the solar panel manufacturing arena with a series of non-contact capacitive gap and parallelism sensor systems, which help manufacturers maintain thin-film coating uniformity to improve yields and efficiencies.
Aaron Hand, Executive Editor -- PV Society, 9/23/2009
Capacitec Inc. (Ayer, Mass.) has debuted a series of non-contact capacitive gap and parallelism sensor systems for the solar panel market. The systems measure the precise distance between liquid, antireflective and CVD coating head-to-media during solar panel production, which helps manufacturers maintain thin-film coating uniformity to improve yields and efficiencies.
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| Capacitec's capacitive gap and parallelism sensor systems help manufacturers maintain thin-film coating uniformity. |
The company is new to the solar market, bringing more than 15 years of experience providing measurement technology to semiconductor manufacturing equipment, as well as designing slot die coater gap measurement systems sold to OEMs and end users. Within its work in the liquid coating market, the company's collaborations have developed systems that achieve coater gap uniformity of better than 0.25 µm, with gaps as thin as 110 µm across the full length of the coater die.
In the manufacture of thin-film PV panels, Capacitec's systems are used in the deposition of the thin film onto the silicon layer with chemical vapor deposition (CVD), as well as throughout the processing of additional layers and encapsulation of the PV module between the glass panel and reflective backing.
In flexible solar panels, CVD coaters are used in the production of the transparent conductive oxide (TCO). A parallelism sensor system is used to measure the distance in-process between the CVD coater head and metal carrier roll, in temperatures up to 600°C.
During organic PV panel fabrication, a slot die coater gap measurement system is used to maintain organic material coating uniformity. Capacitec systems are also used to maintain parallelism between the slot die coater and metal roller, as well as the parallelism of metal rollers during the encapsulation stage.
