DESPATCH

The aim of this project is threefold: 1.- To develop an atmospheric plasma enhanced spatial atomic layer deposition (APE-SALD) setup. SALD is a recent variation of conventional ALD in which the precursors are separated in space rather than in time, thus allowing processing at atmospheric pressure and orders of magnitude faster deposition rates. Atmospheric plasma assistance would further expand the possibilities of this appealing technique thanks to processing at lower Ts (=150 ºC) with a larger precursor choice. 2.- To apply the developed APE-SALD system for the deposition of ZnO based transparent conductive oxide (TCO) electrodes on Si heterojunction (HET) solar cells, as an alternative to currently used sputtered ITO. SALD is an ideal technique for this HET technology since the presence of active amorphous Si layers on this type of cells requires soft deposition conditions, together with high throughput processing, in order to be industrially competitive. Reciprocally, the stringent processing requirements imposed by HET cells constitute an ideal test bench allowing the evaluation of the full potential of APE-SALD. 3.- On a more fundamental level, to characterize in-situ the plasma and reaction intermediates to understand the reaction mechanisms and the plasma species being generated.