CN107794510B

CN107794510B - Vertical vacuum coating production line for flexible film

Info

Publication number: CN107794510B
Application number: CN201610785824.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 黄乐; 祝海生; 黄国兴; 孙桂红; 黄夏
Original assignee: XIANGTAN HONGDA VACUUM TECHNOLOGY Co Ltd
Current assignee: XIANGTAN HONGDA VACUUM TECHNOLOGY Co Ltd
Priority date: 2016-08-31
Filing date: 2016-08-31
Publication date: 2020-01-07
Anticipated expiration: 2036-08-31
Also published as: CN107794510A

Abstract

The invention discloses a vertical vacuum coating production line for a flexible film, which comprises a plurality of coating sub-lines, wherein each sub-line sequentially and independently performs vertical coating on the film, each sub-line at least comprises an unwinding chamber, a coating chamber and a winding chamber along the film unfolding direction, a main driving roller is arranged in the unwinding chamber and the winding chamber, a plurality of driving rollers are arranged in each cavity of the sub-line, and a tension detection roller and a tension adjusting roller are arranged in at least one cavity of the sub-line; wherein: the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller are arranged adjacently, the tension detection roller is used for monitoring the tension of the film in real time, the tension adjusting roller adjusts the self rotating speed according to the feedback of the tension detection roller so as to adjust the transmission speed of the film in each chamber, the tension adjusting roller is a non-transmission roller, and the unfolding track of the film passing through the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller is a non-linear track. The flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention has the advantages of short element diffusion path, no intermediate product, no element evaporation and high film efficiency, and is particularly suitable for large-area large-scale industrial production.

Description

Vertical vacuum coating production line for flexible film

Technical Field

The invention relates to a vertical vacuum coating production line for a flexible film, and belongs to the field of new energy manufacturing.

Background

The CIGS solar cell is a chalcopyrite crystalline thin-film solar cell which is composed of four elements of Cu (copper), In (indium), Ga (gallium) and Se (selenium) In an optimal proportion, the CIGS solar cell has a layered structure, an absorption material belongs to I-III-VI compounds, and a substrate of the CIGS solar cell is generally a stainless steel, glass or flexible thin-film substrate and is a key technology for forming a cell panel. The product has the advantages of strong light absorption capacity, good power generation stability, high conversion efficiency, long power generation time in the daytime, high power generation amount, low production cost, short energy recovery period and the like. CIGS solar cells generally employ vacuum sputtering, evaporation or other non-vacuum methods to deposit multiple thin films, respectively, to form P-N junctions to form photoelectric conversion devices. Starting from the light-incident layer, the layers are: a metal gate electrode, an anti-reflective film, a window layer (ZnO), a transition layer (CdS), a light absorbing layer (CIGS), a metal back electrode (Mo), glass, or a flexible thin film substrate. The bottom electrode Mo and the upper electrode n-ZnO of the CIGS solar cell generally adopt a magnetron sputtering method, and the process route is mature. There are many different methods for the preparation of the absorber layer, and these deposition methods include: evaporation, selenization after sputtering, electrochemical deposition, spray pyrolysis, screen printing, etc. Among them, evaporation and selenization after sputtering are vacuum methods, which have been widely used in the industry.

The existing mature technology of CIGS solar panels is film layer preparation on glass substrates, and the production equipment of CIGS solar panels based on glass substrates is widely used in the world. However, with diversification of the use environment of solar cells, the use of rigid substrates such as glass substrates limits the use environment of solar cells, and thus CIGS thin-film solar cells have come to be produced.

The transparent conductive film on the market at present mainly comprises ITO (In)₂O₃:Sn)、FTO(SnO₂F) and AZO (ZnO: Al). The advantages and disadvantages of the ITO film are respectively, such as lower resistivity and higher cost of the ITO; the cost of FTO is low, the film forming temperature is high, and the environmental stability of hydrogen plasma is poor; AZO has good stability in hydrogen plasma environment, low cost and inferior electrical property to ITO. The thin film solar cells with different absorption layers need to be selected and adaptedTo obtain the best interface effect. The aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) film can be used as a transparent conductive film material of amorphous silicon/microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells and CIGS thin-film solar cells due to the advantages of excellent conductive performance, visible light transmission performance, good hydrogen plasma stability, low price, rich resources and the like.

The research of ZnO-based thin films in foreign countries starts in the 8O's of the 20 th century, and the main work is focused on three aspects of thin film preparation technology, conduction mechanism, micro-doping and the like. The preparation process of the ZnO-based film mainly comprises Magnetron Sputtering (MS), Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD), Sol-Gel (Sol-Gel), Spray pyrolysis (Spray pyrolysis) and the like. Research results show that AZO prepared by a PVD process has relatively low resistivity and relatively high transmittance, the best optical and electrical properties can be obtained by adopting an RF magnetron sputtering technology, but the RF magnetron sputtering deposition rate is low, the cost is high, and the method is not suitable for large-scale production. AZO prepared by adopting a sol-gel process has higher resistivity and lower transmittance. At present, most processes still stay in the process development and research stage, and only a few processes can realize industrial production at present. The Switzerland Erican solar energy division and the Switzerland micro technology research Institute (IMT) develop a BZO (ZnO: B) in-line production line by adopting an LPCVD process, and sell the BZO in-line production line and an amorphous/microcrystalline silicon cell production line together, thereby providing a Turnkey amorphous/microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cell manufacturing technology. The BZO surface grown by the LPCVD technology has a suede effect, and a light-catching effect (light-trap) can be realized without post-treatment; however, LPCVD equipment and raw materials are expensive, and waste in the process is large, so that the BZO cost is high. The photovoltaic research Institute (IPV) of Juelich in Germany adopts MF magnetron sputtering technology to prepare AZO film, and then adopts acid etching technology to prepare suede, so as to achieve light capture effect. The process has simple equipment and relatively low cost, and the quality of the film (such as sheet resistance, transmittance, sheet resistance uniformity and the like) has great relation with the cathode design, sputtering parameters, power supply type and the like of magnetron sputtering.

In a word, the TCO film has common photoelectric characteristics of forbidden bandwidth, high light transmittance in a visible spectrum region, low resistivity and the like, and has wide application prospect in the fields of solar cells, flat panel displays, special function window coatings and other photoelectric devices. The TCO film has the advantages of lower manufacturing cost than ITO, no toxicity, easy photoetching processing, better chemical stability in hydrogen atmosphere than ITO film, and possibility of replacing ITO products, especially in the field of transparent electrodes of solar cells. And ZnO which emerged in the 80 s of the 20 th century: the Zn source in the Al (AZO for short) transparent conductive film is low in price (the market price of related metal materials is calculated by RMB per kilogram and is approximately 15.2 of aluminum, 14.4 of zinc, 152 of tin and 3200 of indium), the source is rich and nontoxic, the stability in hydrogen plasma is superior to that of an ITO film, and the Al transparent conductive film has photoelectric characteristics which are similar to those of the ITO film. Therefore, the AZO thin film has become a research hotspot in the field of TCO thin films and is widely applied.

The preparation process of the thin-film solar cell mainly comprises magnetron sputtering and vacuum evaporation. Magnetron sputtering is a process in which energetic particles are used to bombard a solid target material, causing atoms or molecules of the target material to be sputtered out and deposited on the surface of the substrate. The target material can be selected from metal target and ceramic target. The magnetron sputtering preparation method has the advantages of high deposition rate, low substrate temperature, good film forming adhesiveness, easy control, low cost and suitability for large-area film making, and is still the most researched and mature AZO film preparation technology with the most extensive application at present. Vacuum evaporation is to evaporate or sublimate the material to be made into film in vacuum to make it separate out on the surface of substrate. The vacuum evaporation device is simple, the technological parameters are less, the growth of the film is easy to control, and the impurity content in the film is low. But the structure and the performance of the film are directly influenced by the vacuum degree, the vacuum degree is low, the material is seriously polluted by residual gas molecules, the performance of the film is deteriorated, and the temperature of the substrate is increased, so that the desorption of the gas molecules is facilitated.

The CIGS thin-film solar cell panel takes a flexible thin film as a base material, so that the CIGS thin-film solar cell panel has the use advantages of light self weight, strong usability and wide application range, and simultaneously brings about improvement on the difficulty of a production process, the phenomenon that the thin film expands with heat and contracts with cold under a high-temperature environment is very serious, the thin film is soft and light, folding or other mechanical losses are easy to occur on a production line, and the technical key points in the production process are changed because the thin film is likely to be fragile or uneven in thickness due to the influence of the high-temperature environment on the internal molecular motion, so that corresponding production equipment needs to be correspondingly improved. The CIGS thin film battery has high photoelectric efficiency, the consumption of raw materials is less than 1 percent of that of crystalline silicon, and the CIGS thin film battery has great low-cost potential. However, this potential is not fully shown so far, and the most fundamental reason is that the traditional CIGS thin film cell technology ("co-evaporation" and "post-selenization") has inherent defects, the process is too complicated, the cell yield is generally lower than 60%, and the low-cost advantage cannot be reflected. In the prior art, the production of CIGS thin-film solar cells is continuous glass substrate production equipment, and the equipment has low integration level and cannot overcome the technical difficulty brought by the properties of the thin film.

Disclosure of Invention

Aiming at the problems in the prior art, the invention aims to provide a vertical vacuum coating production line for a flexible film capable of vertically coating.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:

the invention aims to provide a vertical vacuum coating production line for a flexible film, which comprises:

the film coating machine comprises a plurality of film coating sub-lines, wherein each sub-line sequentially and independently performs vertical film coating on a film, each sub-line at least comprises an unwinding chamber, a film coating chamber and a winding chamber along the film unfolding direction, a main driving roller is arranged in the unwinding chamber and the winding chamber, a plurality of driving rollers are arranged in each cavity of the sub-lines, and a tension detection roller and a tension adjusting roller are arranged in at least one cavity of the sub-lines; wherein:

the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller are arranged adjacently, the tension detection roller is used for monitoring the tension of the film in real time, the tension adjusting roller adjusts the self rotating speed according to the feedback of the tension detection roller so as to adjust the transmission speed of the film in each chamber, the tension adjusting roller is a non-transmission roller, and the unfolding track of the film passing through the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller is a non-linear track.

Preferably, the contact area between the dancer roll and the film is equal to or larger than the contact area between the tension detection roll and the film and the contact area between the driving roll and the film.

Preferably, the film passes through the tension detection roller and the adjacent tension adjustment roller in this order when the film is unwound.

Preferably, the end of the roll shaft in the vertical direction is provided with a universal bearing.

Preferably, the Mo sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a first sputtering chamber, a transition chamber, a second sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the film.

More preferably, at least one single-rotation cathode is provided in each of the first sputtering chamber and the second sputtering chamber, and the installation position of the single-rotation cathode in the sputtering chamber can be adjusted as required.

As a preferred embodiment, a film enters a first sputtering chamber after being unfolded by an unwinding driving roller in an unwinding chamber and then passes through a driving roller and a tension detection roller, a motor serving as a tension adjusting roller is arranged on the first driving roller in the first sputtering chamber, the film is unfolded at a constant speed in the first sputtering chamber after the rotation speed is adjusted, a magnetron sputtering Mo layer is formed, the film enters a transition chamber after being coated to adjust the tension, the driving roller, the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller are sequentially arranged in the transition chamber according to the unfolding direction of the film and then enters a second sputtering chamber, a positive cathode and a negative cathode are arranged in the second sputtering chamber and are used for magnetron sputtering, the film after secondary coating enters a winding chamber, the film is cooled by a cooling roller after the unfolding direction is changed by the driving roller, then passes through the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller, and finally is wound to the winding.

Preferably, the annular CIGS sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a preheating chamber, a transition chamber, an evaporation chamber, a cooling chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the flexible film substrate, wherein the evaporation chamber and the transition chamber are alternately arranged, and the transition chambers are arranged on two sides of the evaporation chamber.

More preferably, a combined linear evaporation source is provided in the evaporation chamber.

As a preferred embodiment, after the film is unfolded in the unreeling chamber, the film is firstly heated in a primary heating chamber, a plurality of corrugated soaking plates and driving rollers are arranged in the preheating chamber, a transition chamber is arranged between the preheating chamber and the evaporation chamber and between the evaporation chamber and the cooling chamber and used for detecting and adjusting the unfolding speed of the film and separating different process sections so as to gradually process the film, the preferred number of the evaporation chambers for evaporating CIGS layers is 5, a flat push type evaporation door is arranged at the outer edge of the evaporation chamber, a combined linear evaporation source is arranged on the linear evaporation door, the evaporation sources are generally in two groups, three groups of evaporation sources are arranged in the door, the types of the evaporation sources can be adjusted according to the needs of film coating, or a single small evaporation source is added in the door, the film after the film is evaporated and enters the chamber after being cooled in the primary cooling chamber, two rolling cooling rollers and a film layer analyzer are, the film layer is analyzed without error so as to be collected into a rolling driving roller by the cooled film, and a tension detecting roller and a tension adjusting roller are further arranged in the rolling chamber and used for adjusting the film unfolding speed and ensuring that the film is rolled after being cooled.

Preferably, the ZnO sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a first sputtering chamber, a transition chamber, a second sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the film.

More preferably, the first sputtering chamber and the second sputtering chamber of the ZnO line are provided with planar cathodes on the same side of the flexible film substrate which is unfolded.

As a preferred embodiment, the planar cathodes are arranged in pairs.

Preferably, the AZO sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the flexible film substrate.

Preferably, each sub-line further comprises a vacuum obtaining system, wherein the vacuum obtaining system comprises a main vacuum pump, an independent vacuum pump, a vacuum pipeline and a main pumping pipeline, the main pipeline is connected with the vacuum pipeline and the main vacuum pump, the vacuum pipeline is connected with the main pumping pipeline and the independent vacuum pump, and the independent vacuum pump is arranged in each chamber.

Compared with the prior art, the vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible film provided by the invention has the following advantages:

1. the unfolding mode of the vertical film substrate is adopted, so that the influence of impurities in the environment on the film coating quality of the film is reduced in the film coating process, the contact between the film surface and a production line is minimized, and the damage to the uniformity of the film layer after the film surface contacts other objects is avoided.

2. The CIGS production line comprises Mo sub-lines, annular CIGS sub-lines, ZnO sub-lines and AZO sub-lines, wherein the four sub-lines are the most core steps in the production process of the CIGS thin-film solar cell.

3. The four steps of CIGS evaporation are ingeniously combined into one annular production line, so that the production efficiency is greatly improved, the consumption in the production process is reduced in the integrated production process, the energy is saved, the environment is protected, and the quality of the produced film layer is better.

4. The rotating target improves the utilization rate of the target material and the uniformity of the coating film layer, and the target material cannot generate pits when being bombarded, thereby avoiding the formation of a sputtering oxide layer. The target material has high utilization rate, small average film thickness and uniform film layer.

5. Magnetron sputtering has the characteristic of high-speed precipitation, can plate almost all metals and alloys, conductors and insulators, can plate films on low-melting-point metals and plastics, and has high film plating speed.

6. The setting technology of the multistage heating module can realize temperature control adjustment, and meanwhile, under the condition of high-temperature coating, the uniformity of substrate heating is ensured, the energy consumption is saved, and the temperature range is as follows: the temperature is continuously adjustable and controllable between normal temperature and 600 ℃.

7. The driving roller and the tension detection roller have the advantages of simple structure, reliable operation, easy processing and manufacturing, high substrate conveying smoothness and convenient friction wheel replacement, thereby ensuring the film coating quality, reducing the manufacturing and maintenance cost of a production line and ensuring the very small deviation of the control precision of the driving stroke.

8. The tension detection rollers can be arranged on each driving roller according to needs, and the tension of the film base material is controlled by adjusting the rotating speed of the rollers, so that the tension control of the film base material is more accurate.

9. The two-stage vacuum pump of the vacuum obtaining equipment has short vacuum degree pumping time, the sealing effect of the operation door is uniform, and the ultimate vacuum degree of the process chamber reaches 10^-5Pa, and is suitable for various coating production lines.

In a word, the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention can realize mass and low-cost production of various large-area coatings, and has high sputtering deposition rate and strong process universality. The element diffusion path is short, no intermediate product is produced, no element is evaporated, so that the battery efficiency is high, the yield is up to more than 95%, and the method is particularly suitable for large-area large-scale industrial production.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic process flow diagram of a vertical vacuum coating production line for flexible films according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a structural diagram of a Mo sub-line in a plan view of the vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible film provided by the invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a Mo sub-line vacuum system of the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention.

FIG. 4 is a Mo sub-line schematic view of the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention.

FIG. 5 is a top view structural diagram of an annular vacuum vapor deposition CIGS sub-line of the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of an annular vacuum evaporation CIGS sub-line evaporation chamber and a transition chamber of the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention.

FIG. 7 is a structural diagram of a ZnO sub-line in a plan view of the vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible thin film provided by the invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic view of a ZnO sub-line vacuum system of the vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible film.

FIG. 9 is a schematic view of a ZnO sub-line of the vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible film provided by the invention.

FIG. 10 is a top view structural diagram of AZO sub-lines of the vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film provided by the invention.

FIG. 11 is a schematic view of an AZO sub-line vacuum system of the flexible film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention.

FIG. 12 is a schematic view of an AZO sub-line of the vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film provided by the invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described more fully with reference to the following examples and comparative examples.

The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film is a vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film, namely, in the production process, the film is produced in each step in a state of being vertical to the ground, and the vertical production line not only ensures no impurity pollution in the coating process, but also avoids the damage of the film surface without contacting with equipment, and ensures that the coating in the coating process is more uniform. As shown in fig. 1, the production line of the present invention includes the following four process flow sections: mo sub-lines for sputtering metallic molybdenum (Mo) onto the thin film; depositing and forming annular evaporator wires of a CIGS battery absorption layer in a selenium environment by adopting linear evaporation sources of copper, indium and gallium; sputtering a ZnO rotary ceramic target on the CIGS layer by adopting pulse direct current to serve as ZnO sub-line of the buffer layer; and AZO sub-lines of ZnO, Al (AZO), on the buffer layer. In the CIGS thin-film solar cell production process, besides the production line, a plurality of upstream and downstream processing processes of the production line are involved, including conventional steps of cleaning, scribing, connecting wires and the like.

The thin film used in the embodiment is a PI film, and the PI film is a preferred base film in the invention, but the production line provided by the invention can also be used for any thin film which can be used for a CIGS solar cell base film, the PI film is not to be taken as a limitation to the invention, and the flexible thin film vertical vacuum coating production line provided by the invention can also be used for the production of glass substrate solar cells.

The production line comprises linear type production lines and annular production lines, each production line comprises an unreeling chamber, a reeling chamber and at least one coating chamber, and when the number of the coating chambers is more than two, at least one transition chamber is arranged between the coating chambers. The unwinding chamber and the winding chamber are internally provided with a main driving roller which is completely contacted with the film surface and used for unwinding and winding, namely the unwinding driving roller and the winding driving roller are respectively positioned at the head end and the tail end of the production line. The production line is also internally provided with at least one tension detection roller and at least one tension adjusting roller, the tension detection roller and the tension adjusting roller are adjacently arranged, and the tension adjusting roller is a non-driving roller; the producer line is also internally provided with a plurality of driving rollers, the contact area of the tension adjusting roller and the film is more than or equal to that of the tension detecting roller and the driving rollers, and the contact area of the tension adjusting roller and the film is preferably more than that of the tension detecting roller and the driving rollers.

The tension detection roller is provided with a tension detection device, can perform tension detection and edge control detection in real time and feed back a detection value in real time, the device determines the unfolding speed of the PI film by detecting the stress of the PI film, and achieves the purpose of controlling the uniform stress of the PI film by adjusting the rotating speed of the tension adjusting roller, namely, the stress detection of the tension detection roller can control the tension adjusting roller to rotate at different rotating speeds to balance the stress of the PI film, so that the PI film is unfolded with uniform stress and is not in contact with other rollers or equipment, and the quality of a coating film is ensured. Tension adjusting roller the tension detecting roller, the tension adjusting roller and the driving roller in the present invention all have the same effect as the present embodiment, and therefore, the detailed description thereof is omitted hereinafter.

The tension detection roller comprises a driving roller and a pressure detection device, and is used for detecting the stress of the roller surface of the tension detection roller so as to determine the rotating speed of the tension adjusting roller. The tension detecting roller is used for detecting tension and controlling the roller speed of the tension adjusting roller, so that the improvement and other structures capable of realizing the technical effect all fall into the protection scope of the invention, and the specific structure of the tension detecting roller is not taken as the limit of the protection scope of the invention.

The driving roller pressure detection device can realize the technical effect of the tension detection roller, so that all the driving rollers in the invention can be added with the pressure detection device and then become the tension detection roller, the tension detection roller can be removed from the pressure detection device and then become the driving roller, and the tension adjusting roller is adjacent to the tension detection roller and is positioned at the downstream of the tension detection roller. The tension detection roller and the driving roller may be used alternately or may be used entirely. The number of the tension detecting rollers and the pressure rollers and the positional relationship are changed and should be considered to fall within the scope of the present invention, and the arrangement of the driving roller and the tension detecting roller in the present embodiment should not be construed as limiting the present invention.

The driving roller is a non-driving roller, namely, the film is unfolded at a certain speed to drive the driving roller to rotate, namely, the driving roller is driven to rotate. In the invention, each sub-line consists of a transmission roller system formed by a plurality of transmission rollers, and the film is unfolded through the transmission roller system and the corresponding film coating step is completed.

The tension adjusting roller is a driving roller provided with a motor, the position of the motor is not shown in the figure, the motor drives the tension adjusting roller to rotate at a certain speed, so that the film is driven to be unfolded, and the speed is the rotating speed obtained in real time after the tension detecting roller detects the speed. The technical effect can be realized because the contact surface of the tension adjusting roller and the film has a certain angle which is different from the unfolding direction of the film passing through the tension detecting roller.

As shown in fig. 2 to 4, the metal thin film layer Mo in the CIGS thin film solar cell functions as a metal back electrode and is located at the bottom layer of the whole cell, that is, the first layer of coating film on the thin film. The Mo sub-line adopts a single rotating target (cathode) to perform direct current sputtering of metal Mo to the PI film. The Mo sub-line 10 includes 5 chambers, which are in turn, according to the deployment direction of the PI film: the device comprises an unreeling chamber 11, a first vacuum sputtering chamber 12, a transition chamber 13, a second vacuum sputtering chamber 14 and a reeling chamber 15, wherein a vacuum obtaining system 16 is distributed in the whole Mo sub-line, so that the temperature and the pressure of a vacuum environment are ensured, and a heating device is arranged in the Mo sub-line, so that the sputtering environment temperature is ensured to be 80-120 ℃. The wall of the same side of each chamber is provided with an operation door, so that the film is convenient to maintain and perform other operations, and the arrow direction in the figure is the unfolding direction of the film.

As shown in fig. 2, specifically, according to the spreading process of the PI film, the PI film sequentially passes through an unwinding driving roller 111, a driving roller 112 and a tension detecting roller 113 in the unwinding chamber 11, wherein the unwinding driving roller 111 and the driving roller 112 are disposed on the same wall of the unwinding chamber, and the tension detecting roller 113 is disposed on an adjacent wall of the unwinding driving roller and located on one side connected to the first vacuum sputtering chamber 12. The initial state of the unwinding driving roller 111 needs to support a coiled PI film, so that the required working diameter is larger, the driving roller 112 is positioned on one side of the unwinding driving roller 111, the difference in diameter is that an angular unfolding direction is formed for the PI film, the tension detection roller 113 and the driving roller 112 are vertically arranged and also form an angular unfolding direction for the PI film, so that the PI film forms a U-shaped unfolding direction in the unwinding chamber 11, the unfolding direction is convenient for detecting the tension of the PI film, the loss caused by uneven stress such as wrinkling and extrusion does not occur to the whole film surface in the unwinding process, the arrangement ensures the realization of the vertical film coating, and the space of the unwinding chamber is saved.

The first vacuum sputtering chamber 12 is internally provided with a plurality of driving rollers, wherein the first roller which is passed by the film when entering the first vacuum sputtering chamber 12 is a tension adjusting roller 124, and the driving rollers 122 are fixed on the same wall of the sputtering chamber, so that the PI film is unfolded along a straight line in the sputtering chamber, an effective sputtering surface as large as possible is ensured, and the sputtering operation is convenient. The heating modules 1221 between the rollers are arranged on two sides of the fixed wall of each driving roller 122, and the heating modules 1221 arranged between the rollers can rapidly enable the film to reach the heating temperature in the unfolding process. And intracavity heating modules are also arranged on the two sides of the PI film, between the driving rollers and on the side wall of the vacuum sputtering chamber. On the opposite side walls of the fixed wall of the driving roller are operating doors 121 provided with door heating modules, preferably corrugated soaking plates and/or heating tubes, so that the entire heating wire is not interrupted or affected by opening the door. A single rotating cathode 123 is also provided on the same side of the chamber wall as the door 121. The single rotating cathode 123 performs dc sputtering under a stable vacuum state, and gas molecules between the cathode and the anode are ionized to generate point charges, wherein positive ions are accelerated by a negative potential to impact the Mo target on the cathode, so as to sputter Mo atoms, and the sputtered Mo atoms are deposited on the substrate of the anode to form a Mo film.

The PI film passing through the first vacuum sputtering chamber 12 passes through the transition chamber 13 for isolating the atmosphere and adjusting the film surface stress. The transition chamber 13 is internally provided with a tension detection roller 131, a driving roller 132 and a tension adjusting roller 133, the tension detection roller 131 is arranged on the opposite chamber wall on one side of the operation door 121, the driving roller 132 and the tension adjusting roller 133 are respectively arranged on two adjacent side walls of the tension detection roller, the driving roller 132, the tension adjusting roller 133 and the tension detection roller 131 form a V-shaped tension transition chamber 13, tension transition is increased, the PI film can be adjusted once in the vacuum sputtering process, the stress of the film surface is adjusted to be uniform, an intracavity heating module 133 is further arranged in the transition chamber, the heating module comprises an inter-roller heating module and an intracavity heating module, and the film is ensured to be in the same temperature environment with cold contraction in the vacuum sputtering chamber during tension transition, so that the influence of the thermal expansion phenomenon on the film sputtering is avoided.

In the present embodiment, the second vacuum sputtering chamber 14 is different from the first vacuum sputtering chamber 12 only in that the second vacuum sputtering chamber is provided with two single rotary cathodes 123, and the two single rotary cathodes 123 are respectively provided on opposite sides in the film development direction.

The setting position of the single-rotation cathode in the above embodiment is selected according to the overall parameters in the embodiment, and the single-rotation cathode can be set at any position on both sides of the film spreading direction in the vacuum sputtering chamber, and as long as the technical effect of vacuum sputtering can be achieved, the single-rotation cathode set at any position should be considered to fall within the protection scope of the present invention, and the setting position in the embodiment should not be taken as a limitation to the present invention.

The PI film enters the winding cavity 15 after being subjected to secondary vacuum sputtering, the PI film enters the winding cavity 15 and firstly changes the film unfolding direction through a driving roller 154 arranged on the side wall, then enters the cooling roller 151 to cool the film surface temperature, is cooled to the normal temperature by the cooling roller, passes through a tension detection roller 153 arranged on the opposite surface of the cooling roller 151, is adjusted in unfolding speed through a tension adjusting roller 155 arranged on the opposite side of the tension detection roller 153, and is finally wound to a winding driving roller 152.

The other important component of the Mo sub-line is the vacuum obtaining system 16, in this embodiment, except the transition chamber 13, each chamber of the Mo sub-line is provided with a vacuum pumping pipeline 161, each vacuum pipeline 161 is connected to a main vacuum pumping pipeline 162, and the main vacuum pumping pipeline 162 is connected to a main vacuum pump 163. Except for the main vacuum pump 163, the present embodiment further provides independent vacuum pumps distributed in each chamber except the transition chamber, according to the requirements of vacuum environment and pressure stability, in the present embodiment, one independent vacuum pump is respectively arranged in the unwinding chamber 11 and the winding chamber 15, and two vacuum pumps are respectively arranged in the first vacuum sputtering chamber 12 and the second vacuum sputtering chamber 14, and the main vacuum pump 163 is used in an air environment to provide for the whole Mo sub-lineA basic vacuum environment, a plurality of independent vacuum pumps 164 are used in the basic vacuum environment to provide a higher working vacuum environment for the Mo sub-line, thereby ensuring that the Mo sub-line is 10 before plating^-5Pa high vacuum environment.

The arrangement of the vacuum pump in this embodiment is a preferable scheme performed according to the working environment of this embodiment, and should not be taken as a limitation to the present invention, and any arrangement of the vacuum pumping device that can achieve the requirement of vacuum sputtering should be considered to fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 5 to 6, in the present embodiment, an annular CIGS sub-line 20 is creatively designed, a CIGS cell absorption layer is formed by depositing linear evaporation sources of copper, indium, and gallium in a selenium environment by using a vacuum evaporation method, an X-ray fluorescence spectrum analyzer is arranged in a vacuum chamber, the composition of a CIGS film layer is monitored by the X-ray fluorescence spectrum analyzer, and a deposition formation layer is adjusted at any time according to a detection result. The annular vacuum evaporation CIGS sub-line adopted by the embodiment ingeniously integrates the processes of four elements of vacuum evaporation on one production line through similar preparation conditions and continuous preparation process, so that the vacuum environment and the high-temperature environment are integrated and shared, the energy is saved, the evaporation efficiency is higher, the evaporation effect is better, and the plating layer is uniform and smooth.

The annular CIGS sub-line 20 sequentially passes through a preheating chamber 202, a transition chamber 203 and evaporation chambers 204-208 from an unreeling chamber 201 to a cooling chamber 209 according to the unfolding direction of a PI film, and is cooled and then wound in a winding chamber 210. Transition chambers are arranged among the evaporation chambers, between the evaporation chambers and the preheating chamber and between the evaporation chambers and the cooling chamber, in other words, the transition chambers 203 are used for connecting all the working chambers and can tension the PI film which is thermally expanded in the evaporation process, so that the evaporation effect of the PI film is ensured, and the PI film can not be wrinkled or curled due to uneven stress in the vertical expansion process and can not be contacted with other rollers or chamber structures. Therefore, in order to ensure the structural design of the annular vacuum evaporation line, the cross section of the transition chamber 203 is preferably trapezoidal, and the upper bottom surface of the trapezoid, i.e. the shorter bottom surface, is located at the inner edge of the annular line.

Unreeling chamber 201 is the same as unreeling chamber of other processing lines in the production line in the structure, including unreeling drive roller 2011, tension detection roller 2012 and driving roller 2013. Wherein, a film layer analysis and detection device is further disposed on the tension detection roller 2012 to analyze the film layer in real time, and the rest of the structure and the connection mode are not described herein again.

The annular CIGS sub-line 20 is provided with a preheating chamber behind the unreeling chamber, the requirement of evaporation on temperature is high, only the heating module 2042 arranged in the evaporation chamber is not enough to ensure heating temperature, so that the whole annular line can reach the ambient temperature above 600 ℃, a plurality of driving rollers and heating modules are arranged in the preheating chamber 202, the specific arrangement structure of the driving rollers and the heating modules is the same as that of a Mo sub-line vacuum sputtering chamber, the driving rollers and the heating modules in the preheating chamber heat the film in a one-stage manner, and the PI film can be ensured to meet the preset temperature requirement above 600 ℃ when entering the transition chamber 203 and the evaporation chambers 204-208.

Since all the driving rollers of the CIGS sub-wire by vacuum vapor deposition in a ring shape are disposed along the outer edge direction, and the PI film is subjected to a certain tension when each chamber is expanded in the ring shape, the tension detection roller 2031, the driving roller 2013, and the tension adjustment roller 2014 in the transition chamber 203 are disposed on the inner edge surface of the ring shape. As shown in fig. 5, when the PI film passes through the transition chamber 203 and the evaporation chambers 204 to 208 on the circular line, the spread shape is substantially circular, so that the film surface is convenient for the linear evaporation source to perform linear evaporation effectively, and the film surface can be ensured not to touch other production line structures during evaporation, thereby ensuring the quality of the film surface.

The evaporation chambers 204-208 have the same structure, and as shown in fig. 5, a plurality of driving rollers 2041 are arranged on one side of the inner edge, heating modules 20421 between the rollers are arranged on two sides of the driving rollers 2041, and an intracavity heating module 20422 is further arranged between the driving rollers 2041 on one side where the driving rollers contact with the PI film, so that the high-temperature environment can be maintained at more than 600 ℃. On the outer fringe side lateral wall of annular line, still be equipped with a plurality of evaporation room door 2043, evaporation room door 2043 is the line source integrated form evaporation room door that is used for evaporating the coating line, and evaporation room door 2043 is flat push formula, can follow the ground guide rail flat push and carry out on-off operation. Be equipped with linear ion evaporation source 2044 in the evaporation chamber door 2043, evaporation chamber door 2043 is with the combination of single linear ion evaporation source 2044 in the evaporation chamber door, linear ion evaporation source can be changed according to the coating by vaporization requirement of evaporation chamber, linear ion evaporation source's temperature is very high, the evaporation source internal temperature of single evaporation source temperature during operation is 500 ~ 1300 ℃, the temperature is very high, it uses to be difficult to the integrated combination, evaporation chamber door 2043 is with the combination of linear ion evaporation source 2044 in the door, not only practiced thrift equipment space, the coating by vaporization effect has still been improved, can also change different linear ion evaporation sources at any time according to the requirement of coating by vaporization technology, be convenient for the maintenance and the use of production line, the adaptability and the flexibility ratio of.

The cooling chamber 209 is provided in the loop wire 20 because the film layer is disintegrated by the rapid cooling due to the very high ambient and film temperatures in the evaporation process. The cooling chamber 209 gradually cools the film from 600 c so that the temperature of the film entering the take-up chamber chill roll is about 150 c. The cooling chamber 209 is cooled by cooling water, a temperature detection system is arranged in the cooling chamber 209, the water inlet temperature and the water return temperature of the cooling water are detected, and the water pressure and the flow rate of the cooling water are determined through temperature detection.

The cooling water is used to cool the film temperature as a preferred mode in this embodiment, and other cooling modes capable of achieving the cooling effect should be considered to fall within the protection scope of the present invention, and the cooling water should not be considered as a limitation of the present invention.

The winding chamber 210 is provided with a plurality of cooling rollers 2101, preferably two cooling rollers 2101 in this embodiment, and a tension detection roller is provided between the two cooling rollers 2101 to detect tension to adjust the rotation speed, thereby effectively cooling the PI film. The cooled PI film is wound and wound up by the driving roller 2102. The film layer analyzing device is further arranged in the winding chamber 210, whether the film layer is abnormal or not is analyzed, and when the film layer is cooled and the film layer is normal, the film layer is normally wound. The probe of the film layer analysis device can resist a high-temperature environment below 100 ℃, and the normal operation of the analysis device is ensured under the cooperation of the cooling roller.

The vacuum obtaining system 211 of the annular CIGS sub-line 20 is disposed at the inner edge side of the annular line, and each chamber from the preheating chamber 202 to the cooling chamber 209 is provided with an independent vacuum pump except for a total vacuum pump 2111 for pumping air to maintain a basic vacuum environmentTo maintain the working vacuum pressure. The main vacuum pump 2111 and the independent vacuum pump 2112 are connected through a vacuum main 2113, and each section of pipeline of the vacuum main is connected through a flexible pipeline to form an annular structure, so that before plating, 10 parts of pipes are guaranteed^-5Pa high vacuum environment.

The vertical vacuum coating production line for the flexible thin film further comprises ZnO sub-lines.

The thin film i-ZnO, namely a pure ZnO intrinsic layer, is a buffer layer plated on the CIGS, the thickness is generally 50nm, the thin film i-ZnO can effectively improve the overall efficiency of the cell assembly, and meanwhile, the thin film i-ZnO, namely the pure ZnO intrinsic layer, plays a good role in tight connection between the AZO layer of the front electrode and the CIGS layer. As shown in fig. 7 to 9, the ZnO sub-line 30 sputtered with ZnO is different from the Mo sub-line 10 only in that the ZnO sub-line 30 uses a medium frequency pulsed direct current to sputter a ZnO planar ceramic target onto a PI film.

The ZnO sub-line 30 sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber 31, a third vacuum sputtering chamber 32, a transition chamber 33, a fourth vacuum sputtering chamber 34 and a reeling chamber 35 along the PI film unreeling direction. The arrangement mode of each chamber is the same as that of the Mo sub-line 10, and the description is not repeated herein, and the structure of each chamber of the ZnO sub-line is explained only according to the development direction of the PI film. The PI film sequentially passes through an unreeling driving roller 311, a driving roller 312 and a tension detection roller 313 in the unreeling chamber 31, wherein the unreeling driving roller 311 and the driving roller 312 are arranged on the same wall of the unreeling chamber, and the tension detection roller 313 is arranged on the adjacent wall of the unreeling driving roller and is positioned on one side connected with the first vacuum sputtering chamber 32. The PI film enters the third vacuum sputtering chamber 31 after being unfolded, an operation door is arranged on the wall on the same side of the 5 chambers, a door heating module 3211 is further arranged on the operation doors 321 of the third vacuum sputtering chamber 32 and the fourth vacuum sputtering chamber 34, the PI film enters the third vacuum sputtering chamber 31 and then passes through the first roller as a tension adjusting roller 324 and then passes through a plurality of driving rollers 322, heating modules 3221 between the rollers are arranged on two sides of the fixed wall of each driving roller 322, and cavity heating modules 3222 are further arranged on two sides along the unfolding direction of the PI film, so that the temperature in the sputtering chambers can reach a preset temperature quickly, paired planar cathodes 323 are arranged on the same side in the third vacuum sputtering chamber 32 and the fourth vacuum sputtering chamber 34, and the planar cathodes are used for sputtering ZnO to the CIGS layer of the PI film in a vacuum environment. A transition chamber 33 is further arranged between the third vacuum sputtering chamber 32 and the fourth vacuum sputtering chamber 34, and the specific structure of the transition chamber 33 is the same as that of the transition chamber 13 of the Mo sub-line, and a tension detection roller 331, a driving roller 332, an in-cavity heating module 333 and a tension adjusting roller 334 are arranged. After two times of vacuum sputtering, the PI film enters the winding chamber 35, the specific structure of the winding chamber 35 is the same as that of the winding chamber 15 of the Mo sub-line 10, the PI film changes the unfolding direction through a driving roller 154, and is cooled through a cooling roller 151, and the cooled PI film is wound on a winding driving roller 352 through the transmission of a tension detection roller 153 and a tension adjusting roller 155 in the winding chamber 35.

The planar cathode 323 in this embodiment is disposed on the same side of the sputtering chamber, and is not a pair of planar cathodes, and the planar cathode is disposed only when the PI film is sputtered with ZnO, so that the PI film has a good sputtering effect.

The vacuum obtaining system of the ZnO sub-line 30 and the vacuum obtaining system of the Mo sub-line comprise a vacuum pipeline 361, a main pumping pipeline 362, a main vacuum pump 363 and an independent vacuum pump 364. The total vacuum pump 363 provides a basic vacuum environment for the whole ZnO sub-line, and the independent vacuum pumps provide higher working vacuum environment for the ZnO sub-line, thereby ensuring that the vacuum pump is 10 before plating^-5Pa high vacuum environment.

The AZO layer functions as a metal oxide front electrode in a CIGS thin film solar cell. AZO layer, ZnO: and an Al layer. As shown in FIGS. 10-12, AZO sub-lines were DC sputtered onto the PI film using an AZO rotating ceramic target at an intermediate frequency.

The AZO sub-line comprises an unreeling chamber 41, a vacuum sputtering chamber 42 and a reeling chamber 43. The vacuum acquisition system 44 provides the necessary vacuum environment for AZO sub-line sputtering. The unreeling chamber 41 of the AZO sub-line 40 is the same as the unreeling

chambers

11 and 31 of the Mo sub-line 10 and the ZnO sub-line 30, and the reeling chamber 43 is the same as the unreeling

chambers

15 and 35 of the Mo sub-line 10 and the ZnO sub-line 30, and the structure and the function of the unreeling chamber are the same.

The AZO sub-line is provided with only one vacuum sputtering chamber 42, one side of the vacuum sputtering chamber 42 is provided with a double rotating cathode 423, the double rotating cathode 423 and the plane cathode 323 are arranged on the same side of the production line, and the preferred double rotating cathode 423 is arranged in the middle of the vacuum sputtering chamber 42. The vacuum sputtering chamber 42 is provided with a tension adjusting roller 424 and a plurality of driving rollers 422, wherein roller heating modules 4221 are arranged on two sides of the driving rollers 422, and intracavity heating modules 4222 are arranged on two sides of the PI film in the unfolding direction. At least one operating door 421 is further arranged on the same side of the vacuum sputtering chamber 422 and the double-rotating cathode 423, a door heating module 4211 is arranged on the operating door 421 and the operating

doors

121 and 321 in the same manner, and the heated environment temperature is 80-120 ℃.

The double-rotating cathode 423 plates Al and ZnO on the ZnO transition layer by means of medium frequency magnetron sputtering, and only one double-rotating cathode is provided in this embodiment. It should be noted that any device or apparatus or improvement of device apparatus that can sputter AZO onto PI film should be considered as falling within the protection scope of the present invention, and the arrangement position, number and specific structure of the dual rotary cathodes described in the present embodiment should not be taken as a limitation of the present invention.

The vacuum obtaining system of the AZO sub-line is the same as the Mo sub-line and the ZnO sub-line on the assembly and comprises a vacuum pipeline 441, a main pumping pipeline 442, a main vacuum pump 443 and an independent vacuum pump 444. The working range of the independent vacuum pump and the main vacuum pump comprises an unreeling chamber 41, a vacuum sputtering chamber 42 and a reeling chamber 43, the main vacuum pump provides a basic vacuum environment for the AZO sub-line, and the independent vacuum pump ensures that the AZO sub-line is 10 before plating^-5Pa high vacuum environment.

Under the coordination of other conventional process parameters and equipment, the flexible thin film vertical vacuum coating production line can achieve complete and flow operation of the CIGS solar cell, has high film yield and good quality, breaks through monopoly of foreign manufacturers on the technical field, overcomes the technical difficulty, skillfully combines the production lines, has good promotion effect on development and manufacture of the future new energy field, and has wide application space and excellent popularization value.

Finally, it must be said here that: the above embodiments are only used for further detailed description of the technical solutions of the present invention, and should not be understood as limiting the scope of the present invention, and the insubstantial modifications and adaptations made by those skilled in the art according to the above descriptions of the present invention are within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. The vertical vacuum coating production line of flexible film, its characterized in that:

sequentially comprises Mo sub-lines for sputtering metal molybdenum (Mo) on the film; depositing and forming annular evaporator wires of a CIGS battery absorption layer in a selenium environment by adopting linear evaporation sources of copper, indium and gallium; sputtering a ZnO rotary ceramic target on the CIGS layer by adopting pulse direct current to serve as ZnO sub-line of the buffer layer; and sputtering AZO sub-line of ZnO, Al (AZO), on the buffer layer, a flat push type evaporation gate is arranged on the annular evaporation sub-line, and a combined linear evaporation source is arranged on the linear evaporation gate;

each sub-line sequentially and independently carries out vertical film coating on the film, each sub-line at least comprises an unwinding chamber, a film coating chamber and a winding chamber along the film unfolding direction, a main driving roller is arranged in the unwinding chamber and the winding chamber, a plurality of driving rollers are arranged in each cavity of the sub-line, and a tension detection roller and a tension adjusting roller are arranged in at least one cavity of the sub-line; wherein:

2. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the Mo sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a first sputtering chamber, a transition chamber, a second sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the film.

3. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the annular CIGS sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a preheating chamber, a transition chamber, an evaporation coating chamber, a cooling chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the flexible film substrate, wherein the evaporation coating chamber and the transition chamber are alternately arranged, and the transition chambers are arranged on two sides of the evaporation coating chamber.

4. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the ZnO sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a first sputtering chamber, a transition chamber, a second sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the film.

5. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the AZO sub-line sequentially comprises an unreeling chamber, a sputtering chamber and a reeling chamber along the unfolding direction of the flexible film substrate.

6. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the contact area between the tension adjusting roller and the film is larger than or equal to the contact area between the tension detecting roller and the film and the contact area between the driving roller and the film.

7. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: when the film is unfolded, the film sequentially passes through the tension detection roller and the adjacent tension adjusting roller.

8. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 1, characterized in that: the tail end of the roll shaft in the vertical direction is provided with a universal bearing.

9. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 2, characterized in that: at least one single rotating cathode is respectively arranged in the first sputtering chamber and the second sputtering chamber.

10. The vertical vacuum coating production line of the flexible film according to claim 3, characterized in that: the evaporation chamber is provided with a combined linear evaporation source.