First Solar, Inc.

Siva Power, Inc.

Markus Eberhard Beck

Ulrich Alexander Bonne

Ming Lun Yu

Erel Milshtein

Timothy J Nagle

Sourav Roger Basu

Raffi Garabedian

Robert G Wendt

Robert L Green

Janice C Lee

An evaporation system comprises an evaporation chamber having an interior enclosed by one or more chamber walls; an evaporation source comprising (i) a source body for containing a feedstock material, and (ii) an evaporation port fluidly coupling the source body with an interior of the evaporation chamber; an insulation material; and a computer-based controller for configuring the insulation material in (i) a first configuration in which the insulation material is disposed snugly around the source body and (ii) a second configuration in which at least a portion of the insulation material is spaced away from the source body and at least a second portion of the insulation material is disposed snugly around the source body; wherein the insulation material does not cover an opening of the evaporation port in the first configuration and the second configuration.

Thin-film deposition methods with thermal management of evaporation sources

In various embodiments, evaporation sources for deposition processes have disposed therearound an insulation material configurable to fit snugly around the source body of the evaporation source and to be at least partially distanced away from the source body to expedite heat transfer therefrom.

In various embodiments, photovoltaic modules are hermetically sealed by providing a first glass sheet, a photovoltaic device disposed on the first glass sheet, and a second glass sheet, a gap being defined between the first and second glass sheets, disposing a glass powder within the gap, and heating the powder to seal the glass sheets.

Methods of hermetically sealing photovoltaic modules

In various embodiments, evaporation sources are heated and/or cooled via a fluid-based thermal management system during deposition of thin films.

Thin-film deposition methods with fluid-assisted thermal management of evaporation sources

In various embodiments, photovoltaic devices incorporate discontinuous passivation layers (i) disposed between a thin-film absorber layer and a partner layer, (ii) disposed between the partner layer and a front contact layer, and/or (iii) disposed between a back contact layer and the thin-film absorber layer.

Methods of forming thin-film photovoltaic devices with discontinuous passivation layers

In various embodiments, evaporation sources for deposition systems are heated and/or cooled via a fluid-based thermal management system.

Fluid-assisted thermal management of evaporation sources

A method of measuring vapor flux density including directing a light beam through a vapor flux to a pixel array sensor and using the pixel array sensor to measure attenuation of the light beam.

Growing community of inventors

Scotts Valley, CA, United States of America

Markus Eberhard Beck