Applied Materials, Inc.

Solarcity Corporation

Tesla, Inc.

Silevo, Inc.

Other

Ebots Inc.

Jianming Fu

Zheng Xu

Praburam Gopalraja

Fusen E Chen

Jiunn Benjamin Heng

Peijun Ding

Wei D Wang

Chentao Yu

John C Forster

Xianmin Tang

Tony P Chiang

Ashok K Sinha

Girish Anant Dixit

Suraj Rengarajan

Howard H Tang

Michael A Miller

Bobby Yang

Wei W Wang

Anantha K Subramani

Gongda Yao

Umesh M Kelkar

Gene Y Kohara

Anish Tolia

Yu D Cong

Christopher James Beitel

Ling Chen

Arvind Sundarrajan

Roderick Craig Mosely

Jick M Yu

Rong Tao

Daniel Clarence Lubben

Walter Benjamin Glenn

Jianjun Liang

Sankaram Athreya

Barry Lee Chin

Liubo Hong

Hong Zhang

Michael Rosenstein

James S Van Gogh

Zhigang Xie

Fernand Dorleans

Yongkee Chae

Michael Nam

Sophia Lee

Chris Cha

Edwin Kim

Fuhong Zhang

Bradley Owen Stimson

John R Foster

Alan Liu

Kai C Yung

Ollivier Jacky Lefevre

James Van Gogh

Wen Zhong Kong

Ayad A Al-Shaikh

Kenneth Reese Reynolds

Guanghua Song

Hsien-Lung Yang

Leif Eric Delaurentis

One embodiment can provide an intelligent robotic system. The intelligent robotic system can include at least one multi-axis robotic arm, at least one gripper attached to the multi-axis robotic arm for picking up a component, a machine vision system comprising at least a three-dimensional (3D) surfacing-imaging module for detecting 3D pose information associated with the component, and a control module configured to control movements of the multi-axis robotic arm and the gripper based on the detected 3D pose of the component.

Intelligent robots

A wafer carrier for carrying solar cell wafers during a deposition process is described. The carrier is coated with pyrolytic carbon, silicon carbide, or a ceramic material, and is adapted to receive and support the wafers.

Wafer carrier for reducing contamination from carbon particles and outgassing

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar module. The solar module includes a front-side cover, a back-side cover, and a plurality of solar cells situated between the front- and back-side covers. A respective solar cell includes a multi-layer semiconductor structure, a front-side electrode situated above the multi-layer semiconductor structure, and a back-side electrode situated below the multi-layer semiconductor structure. Each of the front-side and the back-side electrodes comprises a metal grid. A respective metal grid comprises a plurality of finger lines and a single busbar coupled to the finger lines. The single busbar is configured to collect current from the finger lines.

Module fabrication of solar cells with low resistivity electrodes

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar cell. The solar cell includes a substrate, a first heavily doped crystalline-Si (c-Si) layer situated above the substrate, a lightly doped c-Si layer situated above the first heavily doped crystalline-Si layer, a second heavily doped c-Si layer situated above the lightly doped c-Si layer, a front side electrode grid situated above the second heavily doped c-Si layer, and a backside electrode grid situated on the backside of the substrate.

Aluminum grid as backside conductor on epitaxial silicon thin film solar cells

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar cell. The solar cell includes a Si base layer, a passivation layer situated above the Si base layer, a layer of heavily doped amorphous Si (a-Si) situated above the passivation layer, a first transparent-conducting-oxide (TCO) layer situated above the heavily doped a-Si layer, a back-side electrode situated below the Si base layer, and a front-side electrode situated above the first TCO layer. The first TCO layer comprises at least one of: GaInO, GaInSnO, ZnInO, and ZnInSnO.

Transparent conducting oxide for photovoltaic devices

A magnetron sputter reactor for sputtering deposition materials such as tantalum, tantalum nitride and copper, for example, and its method of use, in which self-ionized plasma (SIP) sputtering and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) sputtering are promoted, either together or alternately, in the same or different chambers. Also, bottom coverage may be thinned or eliminated by ICP resputtering in one chamber and SIP in another. SIP is promoted by a small magnetron having poles of unequal magnetic strength and a high power applied to the target during sputtering. ICP is provided by one or more RF coils which inductively couple RF energy into a plasma. The combined SIP-ICP layers can act as a liner or barrier or seed or nucleation layer for hole. In addition, an RF coil may be sputtered to provide protective material during ICP resputtering. In another chamber an array of auxiliary magnets positioned along sidewalls of a magnetron sputter reactor on a side towards the wafer from the target. The magnetron preferably is a small, strong one having a stronger outer pole of a first magnetic polarity surrounding a weaker outer pole of a second magnetic polarity and rotates about the central axis of the chamber. The auxiliary magnets preferably have the first magnetic polarity to draw the unbalanced magnetic field component toward the wafer. The auxiliary magnets may be either permanent magnets or electromagnets.

Self-ionized and inductively-coupled plasma for sputtering and resputtering

One embodiment of the present invention can provide a system for fabricating a photovoltaic structure. During fabrication, the system can deposit a first passivation layer on a first side of a Si base layer of the photovoltaic structure using a static chemical vapor deposition process. The static chemical vapor deposition process can be performed inside a first reaction chamber. The system can then transfer the photovoltaic structure from the first reaction chamber to a second reaction chamber without the photovoltaic structure leaving a common vacuum space comprising both reaction chambers, and deposit a second passivation layer on the first passivation layer using an inline chemical vapor deposition process. The inline chemical vapor deposition process can be performed inside the second reaction chamber.

Chemical vapor deposition tool and process for fabrication of photovoltaic structures

One embodiment of the present invention provides a photovoltaic module. The photovoltaic module includes an optical concentrator and a tunneling-junction solar cell. The tunneling-junction solar cell includes a base layer, a quantum-tunneling-barrier (QTB) layer situated above the base layer, an emitter layer, a front-side electrode, and a back-side electrode.

Tunneling-junction solar cell with copper grid for concentrated photovoltaic application

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar cell. The solar cell includes a base layer comprising crystalline Si (c-Si), a hole collector situated on a first side of the base layer, and an electron collector situated on a second side of the base layer, which is opposite the first side. The hole collector includes a quantum-tunneling-barrier (QTB) layer situated adjacent to the base layer and a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer situated adjacent to the QTB layer. The TCO layer has a work function of at least 5.0 eV.

Hole collectors for silicon photovoltaic cells

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar cell panel that includes a front-side cover, a back-side cover, a number of solar cells situated between the front-side cover and the back-side cover, and a number of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) devices situated between the front-side cover and the back-side cover.

Solar panels with integrated cell-level MPPT devices

One embodiment of the present invention provides a method for fabricating solar cells. During operation, an anti-reflection layer is deposited on top of a semiconductor structure to form a photovoltaic structure, and a front-side electrode grid comprising a metal stack is formed on top of the photovoltaic structure. The metal stack comprises a metal-adhesive layer comprising Ti or Ta, and a conducting layer comprising Cu or Ag situated above the metal-adhesive layer.

Solar cell with electroplated metal grid

One embodiment provides an electroplating apparatus, which includes a tank filled with an electrolyte solution, a number of anodes situated around edges of the tank, a cathode situated above the tank, and a plurality of wafer-holding jigs attached to the cathode. A respective wafer-holding jig includes a common connector electrically coupled to the cathode and a pair of wafer-mounting frames electrically coupled to the common connector. Each wafer-mounting frame includes a plurality of openings, and a respective opening provides a mounting space for a to-be-plated solar cell, thereby facilitating simultaneous plating of front and back surfaces of the plurality of the solar cells.

Electroplating apparatus with improved throughput

One embodiment of the present invention provides a double-sided heterojunction solar cell module. The solar cell includes a frontside glass cover, a backside glass cover situated below the frontside glass cover, and a number of solar cells situated between the frontside glass cover and the backside glass cover. Each solar cell includes a semiconductor multilayer structure situated below the frontside glass cover, including: a frontside electrode grid, a first layer of heavily doped amorphous Si (a-Si) situated below the frontside electrode, a layer of lightly doped crystalline-Si (c-Si) situated below the first layer of heavily doped a-Si, and a layer of heavily doped c-Si situated below the lightly doped c-Si layer. The solar cell also includes a second layer of heavily doped a-Si situated below the multilayer structure; and a backside electrode situated below the second layer of heavily doped a-Si.

Low-cost high-efficiency solar module using epitaxial Si thin-film absorber and double-sided heterojunction solar cell with integrated module fabrication

One embodiment of the present invention provides a solar cell. The solar cell includes a photovoltaic structure and a front-side metal grid situated above the photovoltaic structure. The front-side metal grid also includes one or more electroplated metal layers. The front-side metal grid includes one or more finger lines, and each end of a respective finger line is coupled to a corresponding end of an adjacent finger line via an additional metal line, thus ensuring that the respective finger line has no open end.

Photovoltaic devices with electroplated metal grids

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Jianming Fu