JP2000299481A - Manufacture of thin-film solar battery and degassing processor for solar battery substrate - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a degassing processor which efficiently executes a degassing processing on a substrate, improves manufacture efficiency, prevents thermal deformation of the substrate and is suitable for the manufacturing method of a thin-film solar battery. SOLUTION: Before a vacuum film forming processing is executed on a substrate in a state where it is exposed to air in a vacuum film forming processor, a dedicated degassing processor executes degassing processing, and the substrate is introduced into the vacuum film forming processor. The degassing processor is divided into a first vacuum tank 11, provided with an unwinding roll 11 and a second vacuum tank 12, provided with a winding roll 113. Both the vacuum tanks are provided with substrate transfer rollers 19 and 119, heating devices formed of heating rollers 15a, 15b, 115a and 115b for heating substrate and infrared lamps 16 and 116, preliminary heating rollers 14 and 114 and preliminary cooling rollers 18 and 118. Both vacuum tanks communicate via a slit 10 on which the substrate can be transferred.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a thin film solar cell and an apparatus for degassing a solar cell substrate used in the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, research and development of clean energy are being promoted from the standpoint of environmental protection. Above all, solar cells are attracting attention because of their infinite resources (solar rays) and no pollution.

[0003] Thin-film solar cells are considered to be the mainstream of solar cells in the future because of their thinness, light weight, low manufacturing cost, and easy area enlargement.

Conventional thin-film solar cells use a glass substrate, but research and development of a flexible solar cell using a plastic film and a metal film has been promoted in terms of weight reduction, workability, and mass productivity. Taking advantage of this flexibility, mass production has become possible by a roll-to-roll or stepping roll manufacturing method.

In the above-mentioned thin-film solar cell, a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements (or cells) are formed by laminating a metal electrode layer, a photoelectric conversion layer composed of a thin-film semiconductor layer and a transparent electrode layer on a flexible electrically insulating film substrate. Have been. By repeatedly electrically connecting a metal electrode of a certain photoelectric conversion element and a transparent electrode of an adjacent photoelectric conversion element, a voltage required for the metal electrode of the first photoelectric conversion element and the transparent electrode of the last photoelectric conversion element is obtained. Can be output. For example, AC is converted by an inverter and AC 1 is used as a commercial power source.
To obtain 00V, the output voltage of the thin-film solar cell must be 10
0 V or more is desirable, and actually several tens or more elements are connected in series.

[0006] Such a photoelectric conversion element and its serial connection are formed by forming an electrode layer and a photoelectric conversion layer, patterning each layer, and combining them. The configuration and the manufacturing method of the solar cell are described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 9-37.
No. 207 and Japanese Patent Application No. 11-19306.

The thin-film solar cell described in the above patent application is an example in which an electrode layer is also formed on the back surface of the substrate in order to facilitate electrical series connection, but only on one surface of the substrate surface. A solar cell thin film layer is also commonly used.

FIG. 3 shows a conceptual diagram of the structure of the thin-film solar cell described in Japanese Patent Application No. 11-19306. FIG.
1 shows a perspective view of a flexible thin-film solar cell using a plastic film as a substrate. The unit photoelectric conversion element 62 formed on the front surface of the substrate 61 and the connection electrode layer 63 formed on the back surface of the substrate 61 are completely separated into a plurality of unit units, respectively.
The separation positions are shifted from each other. For this reason, the current generated in the photoelectric conversion layer 65, which is the amorphous semiconductor portion of the element 62, is first collected in the transparent electrode layer 66, and then through the current collecting holes 67 formed in the transparent electrode layer region, the current on the rear surface is collected. Through the connection electrode layer 63, further through the connection hole 68 for series connection formed outside the transparent electrode layer region of the device in the connection electrode layer region, outside the transparent electrode layer region of the device adjacent to the device. Reaches the lower electrode layer 64 which extends,
The two elements are connected in series.

FIGS. 4A to 4G show a simplified manufacturing process of the above-mentioned thin film solar cell. Plastic film 71
Is used as a substrate (step (a)), connection holes 78 are formed in the substrate (step (b)), and a first electrode layer (lower electrode) is formed on both surfaces of the substrate.
After forming the first electrode layer 74 and the third electrode layer (part of the connection electrode) 73 (step (c)), a current collecting hole 77 is formed at a position separated from the connection hole 78 by a predetermined distance (step (d)). Next, a semiconductor layer 75 serving as a photoelectric conversion layer and a transparent electrode layer 76 serving as a second electrode layer are sequentially formed on the first electrode layer 74 (step (e)) and step (f). 3 electrode layer 7
A fourth electrode layer (connection electrode layer) 79 is formed on 3 (step (g)). Thereafter, the substrate 71 is irradiated with a laser beam.
Are separated to form a series connection structure as shown in FIG.

In the process shown in FIG.
In (b) and (d), processing is performed on the substrate in the atmosphere, but other steps are performed in a vacuum film forming apparatus described later. Therefore, in the case of the above step, in the steps after the steps (b) and (d), the substrate is processed in the air and then introduced into the vacuum vessel of the vacuum film forming apparatus.

As a method for producing a thin film of this thin film solar cell, there is a roll-to-roll method or a stepping roll method as described above. Both types are provided with a substrate transport means by a plurality of rolls, and the former is a method of continuously forming a film on a substrate continuously moving in each film forming chamber, and the latter is simultaneously stopped in each film forming chamber. A method is used in which a film is formed on a substrate, and the substrate portion on which the film has been formed is sent to the next film forming chamber.

The stepping roll type film forming apparatus is excellent in that the characteristics of each thin film can be stably obtained since gas mutual diffusion between adjacent film forming chambers can be prevented.
The configuration of the device is described in, for example, JP-A-6-292349 and JP-A-8-250431.

FIG. 5 schematically shows the structure of a stepping roll film forming type vacuum film forming apparatus having a plurality of film forming chambers in a common vacuum chamber. The apparatus shown in FIG. 5 includes an unwinder chamber 290 for unwinding a flexible substrate and a film forming chamber serving as a plurality of independent processing spaces for forming a metal electrode layer, a photoelectric conversion layer, a transparent electrode layer, and the like. 280 and a winding winder chamber 291, and while the substrate 201 is unwound from the core 282 and wound on the core 283, the plurality of film forming chambers 2
The film is formed at 80. Common room 281
Houses a plurality of film forming chambers 280 therein.

In the film forming chamber, a film is formed by sputtering film formation or plasma chemical vapor deposition (hereinafter, referred to as plasma CVD). For example, in the stepping roll method in which a film is formed by a plasma CVD method, a film forming chamber is opened, a substrate is moved by one frame, a film forming chamber is sealed, a source gas is introduced, a pressure control is performed, a discharge is started, a discharge is completed, a source gas is stopped, and a gas is drawn. The operation of opening the film forming chamber is repeated.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a schematic structure of a film forming chamber described in the above-mentioned JP-A-8-250431. FIG. 6 (a),
(B) is a schematic sectional view when the film forming chamber is opened and when it is sealed, respectively. A box-shaped lower film forming chamber wall 21 and an upper film forming chamber wall 22 above and below the flexible substrate 1 conveyed intermittently.
Are arranged to face each other, and when the film formation chamber is sealed, an independent processing space including a lower film formation chamber and an upper film formation chamber is formed. In this example, the lower film formation chamber includes a high-voltage electrode 31 connected to the power supply 4, and the upper film formation chamber includes a ground electrode 32 having a built-in heater 33.

At the time of film formation, as shown in FIG. 6B, the upper film forming chamber wall 22 is lowered, and the ground electrode 32 is attached to the opening-side end face of the lower film forming chamber wall 21 while holding down the substrate 1. The contact is made to the sealing material 5 provided. Thereby, the lower film formation chamber wall 2
From the substrate 1 and the substrate 1, an airtightly sealed film-forming space 6 communicating with the exhaust pipe 61 is formed. In the film forming chamber as described above, a high-frequency voltage is applied to the high-voltage electrode 31 to generate plasma in the film forming space 6, decompose the raw material gas introduced from an introduction pipe (not shown), and form a plasma on the substrate 1. A film can be formed.

[0017]

Incidentally, the solar cell substrate has moisture and other volatile components inside the substrate and on the substrate surface. In order to form well, it is necessary to perform a degassing treatment for removing these substances.

Conventionally, when a plurality of vacuum film forming apparatuses are included in a manufacturing process, a film is formed by performing a degassing process in the vacuum film forming apparatus for each film forming apparatus. For this reason, a degassing process must be performed before film formation for each device, or a dedicated portion for performing degassing is required. In addition, if degassing and film formation cannot be performed simultaneously, a long time is required for the process. did.

In the case of the manufacturing process shown in FIG. 4, after the steps (b) and (d), the substrate is processed in the air and then introduced into a vacuum vessel of a vacuum film forming apparatus. Therefore, in each of the subsequent steps (b) and (d), a long time was required for the degassing treatment in the vacuum film forming apparatus.

In an electrode film forming apparatus by sputtering,
The degassing process required a very long time, about three times as long as the time required for the film forming process. In a film forming apparatus for a semiconductor layer having three layers of p, i, and n, film formation is performed in separate steps for each layer by a stepping roll method, so that the time for each step is short. For this reason, the ratio of the time required to occupy the film forming chamber by the degassing process is large, and the degassing process has been the rate-determining stage. In addition, since the heating degassing process and the film formation are performed using the same chamber, only a part of the substrate is heated, and local deformation occurs.

As a method for performing the heat treatment and the film formation treatment in different chambers, for example, a method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-208791 is known. However, the heat treatment described in this publication is intended to control the temperature during film formation, and the heating in the intermediate step is intended to additionally obtain the effect of removing the damage of the film during film formation by annealing. And according to the method described in the above publication,
Degassing cannot be performed efficiently in a short time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to improve the production efficiency by efficiently performing degassing of a substrate.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of manufacturing a thin-film solar cell in which thermal deformation of a substrate is prevented, and a degassing apparatus suitable for the method.

[0023]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a method for forming a metal electrode layer, a photoelectric conversion layer and a transparent electrode layer on a roll-shaped flexible substrate having electrical insulation.
In the method of manufacturing a thin film solar cell sequentially formed in a vacuum film forming apparatus, the substrate exposed to the atmosphere,
Before performing the vacuum film forming process in the vacuum film forming apparatus,
After a degassing process is performed by a special degassing device for removing moisture and other volatile components from inside the substrate and from the surface of the substrate, the gas is introduced into the vacuum film forming device (claim 1). For example, in the case of the manufacturing process of FIG. 4 described above, it is desirable that after the steps (b) and (d), degassing is performed by a dedicated degassing apparatus. However, if the adsorption of volatile components is small in the step (d), it should be performed only after the step (b).
(D) Degassing after the step may be omitted.

The degassing apparatus for carrying out the above method includes a substrate unwinding roll and a winding roll, a substrate transport roll, a heating roll for heating the substrate, and an infrared lamp in a vacuum chamber. (Claim 2).

In a stage prior to a plurality of vacuum film forming processes, an apparatus independent of a vacuum film forming apparatus is used to heat a substrate to remove moisture and other volatile components from the inside of the substrate and the surface of the substrate, thereby improving efficiency. Degassing can be performed well. Further, by heating the entire surface of the substrate for degassing, local thermal deformation can be avoided. In addition, by performing the same heating in the width direction of the substrate, the non-uniformity of the substrate deformation in the width direction can be avoided.

By using an infrared lamp for heating the substrate for degassing, it is possible to efficiently heat the substrate without contact. Further, after forming an electrode having a high reflectance of 98% or more with respect to light of 800 nm or more with silver and 85% or more with aluminum as described above after the step (b), a contact type electrode is formed. Therefore, it is preferable to use a heating roll having a small surface state dependency.

Further, in order to reduce the cost of the apparatus, it is necessary to reduce the size of the vacuum chamber. However, if there is a sudden temperature change, the substrate will be deformed unevenly. It is desirable to use a heating roll for pre-heating and pre-cooling before and after the high-temperature heating device (claim 3).

Further, the vacuum tank is divided into a first vacuum tank provided with an unwinding roll and a second vacuum tank provided with a take-up roll. ,
A substrate transport roll, a heating device comprising a heating roll for heating the substrate and an infrared lamp, or, in addition to this heating device, a pre-heating roll and a pre-cooling roll, and both of the vacuum tanks can transport the substrate. And a first slit communicating with the first slit through a first slit.
It is preferable that the pressure in the vacuum chamber is kept higher than the pressure in the second vacuum chamber to perform the degassing process.

In the early stage of the heating degassing process, the amount of gas discharged from the substrate is large. Therefore, in the first vacuum chamber including the unwinding portion of the substrate, an inert gas is introduced to prevent the gas from re-adhering to the surface and to improve the heat transfer by conduction, and the pressure is preferably kept high. . On the other hand, in the second vacuum tank including the winding section, the amount of gas discharged is reduced as compared with the initial stage. Therefore, it is preferable to reduce the pressure to remove the gas including the inert gas. Therefore, a pressure difference is maintained by connecting vacuum chambers having different pressures through the slits.

Further, a plasma processing apparatus having a vacuum chamber for modifying the surface of the substrate is provided between the first vacuum chamber and the second vacuum chamber. What communicates with the vacuum chamber of the plasma processing apparatus via a slit capable of carrying the substrate is also suitable. According to the degassing apparatus as described above, the surface is made uneven by plasma treatment or the surface is activated by etching or the like to improve the adhesion between the thin film formed by the post-treatment and the substrate. Can be.

When the substrate roll wound in the degassing apparatus is mounted on a film forming apparatus at a subsequent stage, the outermost surface of the roll is exposed to the air and adsorbs moisture, but does not adhere to the inside. Therefore, no problem occurs in the post-process.

[0032]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 shows a schematic structure of a degassing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. This example is
The vacuum chamber is divided into a first vacuum chamber (11) having an unwinding roll (13) and a second vacuum chamber (12) having a winding roll (113). The tanks are respectively provided with substrate transport rolls 19, 119 and heating rolls 15a, 15b, 115a, 115 for heating the substrate.
b and a heating device comprising infrared lamps 16 and 116;
In addition to the heating device, preliminary heating rolls 14 and 114 and preliminary cooling rolls 18 and 118 are provided, and the two vacuum chambers are connected through a slit 10 through which a substrate can be transferred.

In the above degassing apparatus, the substrate 50 is degassed in the first vacuum chamber 11, transferred to the second vacuum chamber 12, further degassed, and wound up.

Although a polyimide-based film is used for the substrate, Kapton, PET (polyethylene terephthalate), PEN (polyethylene naphthalate), a polyamide-based film, and the like can also be used. However, since the heat-resistant temperature differs depending on the material of the film, it is necessary to change the heating temperature according to the material.

In the first vacuum chamber 11, the unwinding roll 1
3 unwinds the film substrate 50 from the preheating roll 14
Preheating, and furthermore, heating rolls 15a and 15b
In addition, heating and degassing are performed by the infrared lamp 16. In addition, when the unwinding roll 13 is directly irradiated by the infrared lamp 16, thermal expansion of the substrate and the core becomes a problem. Heating roll 15b
After passing, the substrate passes through a pre-cooling roll 18 for pre-cooling, and is further changed in trajectory by a transport roll 19, and is transported to the second vacuum chamber 12 through the slit 10.

In the first vacuum chamber 11, the pressure rises because the amount of gas released from the substrate by heating is large. Accordingly, in order to increase the temperature of the substrate by increasing the pressure of the first vacuum chamber 11 and to prevent the gas from re-adhering to the substrate, an inert gas supply device (not shown) supplies argon gas, for example, at about 50 sccm. Flow and pressure using a mechanical booster pump and conductance valve.
It is maintained at about mtorr (13.3 Pa). As the inert gas, nitrogen gas, helium, or the like can be used in addition to argon.

When the metal electrode layer is not formed on the substrate, the infrared lamp 16 sets the current to about 20 A so that the temperature becomes about 300 ° C., and the heating rolls 15 a and 15 b
Set to 00 ° C. Heating roll 1 for preheating and precooling
By setting the temperature to about 160 ° C., it is possible to prevent the heating and cooling of the heating roll 15 a and the transport roll 19 from suddenly cooling and suppress the thermal deformation. Infrared lamp 1
The reason for providing the heating rolls before and after 6 is to prevent rapid heating and cooling in the same manner as described above, since the amount of heating by the infrared lamp is the largest.

Subsequently, in the second vacuum chamber 12, after the film substrate 50 is received by the transport roll 119, the preliminary heating roll 114, the heating roll 115 a, the infrared lamp 1
16, winding is performed by a winding roll 113 through a heating roll 115b and a pre-cooling roll 118. At this time, the temperature of each part is basically set to substantially the same temperature as that of the first vacuum chamber 11. In the second vacuum chamber 12, in order to suppress the re-adhesion of the gas to the substrate, the pressure is not controlled, and the gas is evacuated using a turbo-molecular pump to 10 ^-5 torr (1.
The pressure is maintained at about 33 × 10 ⁻³ Pa).

Although the temperature of the pre-cooling roll 18 is set to 160 ° C., the substrate may be kept at a high temperature by setting the temperatures of all of the 18, 19, 119 and 114 to about 300 ° C.

As described above, in the first and second vacuum chambers, the entire surface of the substrate is heated by the infrared lamp and the heating roll, whereby local thermal deformation of the substrate can be suppressed.

As described above, when an electrode is formed by using a dedicated apparatus for performing the degassing process, the time required for the degassing process conventionally requires about three times the film forming time. Was reduced to the same extent.

In the step of forming a semiconductor film, the degassing process required about 20 minutes per step at first, but it was reduced to about 5 minutes. Furthermore, since the time for local heating for degassing was reduced, the deformation could be reduced. As described above, it was possible to improve the manufacturing efficiency and the quality of the thin-film solar cell.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of a degassing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The degassing apparatus of this embodiment is provided with a plasma processing apparatus 104 having a vacuum chamber for modifying the surface of a substrate between a first vacuum chamber 110 and a second vacuum chamber 120. It is. The two vacuum chambers and the vacuum chamber of the plasma processing apparatus communicate with each other through slits 101 and 102 through which the substrate can be transferred. As in the first embodiment, after processing is performed in the first vacuum chamber 101, the substrate is transferred to the second vacuum chamber 102. Oxygen gas is injected into the vacuum chamber of the plasma processing apparatus 104, and high-frequency discharge is performed between the parallel flat electrodes 103. The surface is modified by passing the substrate between the electrodes. At this time, for example, the gas pressure was set to 200 mtorr, and 1 kW of electric power was supplied.

As the substrate, a polyimide-based film was used in the same manner as in Example 1, but other than that, Kapton, PET, PEN, polyamide-based film, etc. may be used. As a gas to be used, an oxygen gas was used before the electrode was formed, but a mixed gas of oxygen and argon can be used, or an etching gas such as CF4 can be used to change the surface shape of the substrate. However, after the electrodes are formed, it is better to use an inert gas such as argon in order to prevent oxidation of the electrodes.

Thereafter, similarly to the second vacuum tank of the first embodiment, a degassing process was performed in the second vacuum tank 120.

As a result, irregularities were formed on the substrate surface, and the adhesive force between the substrate surface and the silver electrode was increased by about 10% in the bond breaking strength due to tension.

[0049]

According to the present invention, there is provided a thin-film solar cell in which a metal electrode layer, a photoelectric conversion layer, and a transparent electrode layer are sequentially formed on a roll-shaped flexible substrate having electrical insulation in a vacuum film forming apparatus. In the method, before subjecting the substrate exposed to the atmosphere to a vacuum film forming process in the vacuum film forming apparatus, a dedicated degassing for removing moisture and other volatile components from the inside of the substrate and the substrate surface is performed. After the degassing process is performed by the processing apparatus, the gas is introduced into the vacuum film forming processing apparatus (claim 1).

The degassing apparatus for carrying out the above method includes a substrate unwinding roll and a take-up roll, a substrate transport roll, a heating roll for heating the substrate, and an infrared lamp in a vacuum chamber. (Claim 2)
Desirably, a heating roll for pre-heating and pre-cooling is used before and after a heating device comprising the heating roll and an infrared lamp (Claim 3). The first with the unwinding roll
And a second vacuum tank provided with a take-up roll, and the two vacuum tanks are each provided with a substrate transport roll, a heating roll for heating the substrate and an infrared lamp, or In addition to a heating device, a pre-heating roll and a pre-cooling roll are provided, and the two vacuum chambers are configured to communicate with each other through a slit through which the substrate can be transported. By degassing while maintaining the pressure of the first vacuum tank higher than the pressure of the second vacuum tank, degassing of the substrate can be performed efficiently to improve production efficiency. At the same time, thermal deformation of the substrate can be prevented.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, a plasma processing apparatus having a vacuum chamber for modifying the surface of a substrate is provided between the first vacuum chamber and the second vacuum chamber. By the plasma treatment, the surface of the substrate is made uneven, or the surface is activated by etching or the like, so that the adhesion between the thin film formed by the post-treatment and the substrate can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a degassing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram showing another embodiment of the degassing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view conceptually showing an example of the configuration of a thin-film solar cell.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a manufacturing process of a thin-film solar cell.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional thin-film solar cell manufacturing apparatus.

FIG. 6 is a view showing a schematic configuration of a film forming chamber in a conventional apparatus for manufacturing a thin film solar cell.

[Explanation of symbols]

10, 101, 102: slit, 11, 110: first
Vacuum tank, 12, 120: second vacuum tank, 13: unwinding roll, 14, 114: preheating roll, 15a, 1
5b, 115a, 115b: heating roll, 16, 11
6: infrared lamp, 17, 117: shielding member, 18, 1
18: preliminary cooling roll, 19, 119: transport roll, 5
0: film substrate, 103: electrode, 104: plasma processing apparatus, 113: winding roll.

Claims (6)

[Claims] In a method for manufacturing a thin-film solar cell, a metal electrode layer, a photoelectric conversion layer, and a transparent electrode layer are sequentially formed on a roll-shaped flexible substrate having electrical insulation by a vacuum film forming apparatus. Before the substrate exposed inside is subjected to the vacuum film forming process in the vacuum film forming apparatus, the substrate is degassed by a dedicated degassing apparatus for removing moisture and other volatile components from the inside of the substrate and the substrate surface. A method for manufacturing a thin-film solar cell, wherein the method is performed after performing gas treatment and then introducing the gas into the vacuum film forming apparatus. 2. A degassing apparatus for a solar cell substrate used in the method according to claim 1, wherein the substrate unwinding roll and the winding roll, the substrate transport roll, and the substrate are disposed in a vacuum chamber. A degassing apparatus for a solar cell substrate, comprising a heating roll for heating and an infrared lamp. 3. The apparatus according to claim 2, which is before and after a heating device comprising a heating roll and an infrared lamp.
A degassing apparatus for a solar cell substrate, comprising: a preheating roll and a precooling roll, respectively, between the heating device and the unwinding roll and the winding roll. 4. The vacuum chamber according to claim 2, wherein the vacuum chamber is divided into a first vacuum chamber having an unwinding roll and a second vacuum chamber having a winding roll. Each of the vacuum chambers includes a substrate transport roll, a heating device for heating the substrate and a heating device including an infrared lamp, or a preheating roll and a precooling roll in addition to the heating device. A degassing apparatus for a solar cell substrate, wherein the two vacuum chambers communicate with each other through a slit through which the substrate can be transported. 5. The solar cell substrate according to claim 4, wherein the degassing process is performed while maintaining the pressure of the first vacuum tank higher than the pressure of the second vacuum tank. Degassing equipment. 6. A plasma processing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising a vacuum chamber for modifying the surface of the substrate between the first vacuum chamber and the second vacuum chamber. The degassing apparatus for a solar cell substrate, wherein the vacuum chamber and the vacuum chamber of the plasma processing apparatus are connected to each other via a slit capable of carrying the substrate.