CORPORATE FOCUS Unique coating equipment from Germany A regular on the global exhibition circuit, the family-owned company VON ARDENNE has just returned from Intersolar, where delegates were able to get a closer look at its range of advanced vacuum coating equipment for the photovoltaic and solar thermal industry. We caught up with the firm and found out for ourselves what makes it tick. Today, VON ARDENNE’s key technologies scanning electron microscope is extraordinary. are magnetron sputtering and electron He held approximately 600 patents in radio beam evaporation and it holds more than and television technology, electron 600 patents worldwide. However, the microscopy, nuclear plasma, and medical company was founded in 1991 as a spin-off technologies and was the author of countless of the former Manfred von Ardenne books and publications – all done without Research Institute in Dresden, Germany. holding a degree or even a high school A consequence of this was that the expertise diploma. It was thanks to his farsightedness in plasma and electron beam technologies and hard work that he progressed from school that had been acquired over decades could dropout to famous scientist. be used and developed further. Today, the company offers high precision The company owes its name to Manfred vacuum coating equipment such as the von Ardenne, a highly gifted, visionary and PIA|nova coating platform. It is an industry- tenacious scientist and inventor born in proven solution for applying thin metal and 1907. His contribution to inventions such as transparent oxide (TCO) layers on thin-film the radio receiver, the television, and the and wafer based solar cells. 40 PES CORPORATE FOCUS VON ARDENNE coating platform PIA|nova VON ARDENNE glass coating system GC330H VON ARDENNE electron beam gun The main applications are functional layers sputtering target material thickness and deposition of many low-conductivity or for copper indium and gallium (CIGS) utilization and on the target design itself. non-conductive layers thin-film cells (such as the back contacts, Apart from magnetrons with planar targets, • Rotatable single magnetrons in double or which are based on molybdenum including VON ARDENNE offers rotatable magnetrons. single arrangement for direct current (DC) different barrier layers; the precursor, Using rotatable instead of planar targets processes for the deposition of which is based on copper, indium and can contribute tremendously to conductive layers gallium for all technologies using a prolonging the campaign time as the Plus, in combination with rotatable single sequential precursor and selenisation target utilization of up to 85% is much magnetrons, the VON ARDENNE dual process; and front contacts, which are higher compared to planar targets. That anode sputter system (DAS) enables based on intrinsic zinc oxide and aluminum means that more target material can be customers to run long term stable sputter doped zinc oxide). used for the coating processes before the processes depositing very low/non- targets need to be exchanged. Furthermore, it is used in cadmium telluride conductive materials with direct current. In Additionally – based on the sputter and silicon based thin-film cells (back addition, it provides proven planar characteristics of rotatable magnetrons contacts) and crystalline solar cells using magnetron technology with different – the particle behavior is much better hetero junction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) magnetic field characteristics for a wide compared to planar targets. technology (including transparent range of materials. conductive oxide and metal contact layers). During the last decade, VON ARDENNE has The VON ARDENNE rotatable magnetron developed its own rotatable magnetron Meanwhile, the PIA|nova is based on the and a successfully completed in-house technology and has integrated it company’s proven inline coater design. development program are the foundation successfully into their coating systems, The substrates are coated in a continuous for the horizontal coater design which which are sold all over the world. The process, and once the process setup is includes the sputter-down arrangement. company offers: complete, the coater can run for days With a coating width of up to 1.4 m, the without interruption. The length of the • Rotatable dual magnetrons for alternate PIA|nova is suited for the majority of campaign time depends mostly on the current (AC) sputter processes for the common substrate sizes. The coating www.pessolar.com 41 CORPORATE FOCUS VON ARDENNE at the Intersolar in Munich system offers a throughput of up to 250 For applications requiring flexible square metres per hour for thin-film substrates, the company supplies two Arvid Müller photovoltaics on glass based substrates different coating systems. The metal strip or more than 3,600 wafers for crystalline coating system MSC1250 deposits wafer based substrates. Wafers are functional layers on aluminum, copper, or transported with the help of carriers. stainless steel strip that is up to 1.25 m On the other hand, glass substrates for wide. The coater combines the two key thin-film photovoltaics are typically technologies: magnetron sputtering and transported in a carrier-less process. electron beam evaporation. Apart from solar thermal absorbers, coatings for highly As one of the leading manufacturers of reflective mirrors for concentrated solar coating equipment for the architectural applications are a key field of application glass industry, the company has proven for such a coating system. that its systems can meet the high uniformity requirements and extraordinary Finally, it’s worth noting that the company process stability on large-area substrates. also offers a new coating platform for The horizontal glass coating system polymer web applications. The FOSA1600 GC330H, for example, is able to coat glass web coating system can handle up to 1.6 m substrates up to 3.3 m wide and 6 m long. wide PET (polyethylene terephthalate) foils. This coating system sets the industry Examples of photovoltaic applications of VON ARDENNE headquarters in Dresden standard for large area thin-film deposition. the FOSA1600 are the deposition of contact layers made of metals or transparent Furthermore, the company offers the conductive oxides (TCO). vertical glass coating system GC60V for thin-film photovoltaics applications. This coater can process substrates of a width of up to 0.6 m and a length of 1.5 m. The main fields of application for the GC60V coating system are functional layers for: • Metal back contacts for copper indium and gallium (CIGS) thin-film cells • Metal back contacts for cadmium telluride and silicon based thin-film cells The GC60V is ideal for customers who do not require the throughput magnitude of the PIA|nova. It is an inline system with carrier-less design and uses the VON ARDENNE planar magnetron www.vonardenne.biz technology most efficiently. PIA|nova® is a Registered Trademark 42 PES.