Scaleable Evaporative Source Development for Multi-meter Wide Roll-to-Roll Flexible CIGS Photovoltaic Manufacturing

Flexible, polycrystalline thin-film copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) photovoltaics are receiving significant interest by the DoD due to their flexible nature, record efficiency, high specific power, low stowage volume, high stability in a space or airship environment, low-cost roll-to-roll deposition, and the ability to monolithically integrate for reduced integration cost and weight. Current manufacturing is limited to 15 cm and 30 cm wide widths due to challenges with the multisource evaporation process step. ITN and the Colorado School of Mines previously identified issues with evaporative sources and that modeling and experimentation led to a dramatic improvement in yield and device efficiency. In order to increase our plant capacity, our team will apply our multisource evaporation knowledge and our vast modeling experience to develop a scaleable evaporative source that can deposit CIGS onto `standard' webs in excess of one meter wide. In Phase 1, our team will utilize source modeling and specific experimental validation to identify the issues and potential solutions to expanding evaporation sources to accommodate multi-meter web widths. In Phase 2, we will optimize models, fabricate, and test wide evaporation sources in order to evaluate the applicability of this technology to our CIGS manufacturing process for space and near-space applications.