September 24, 2009 – Capacitec announced a series of non-contact capacitive gap and parallelism sensor systems for the solar panel market. The systems are designed to measure the precise distance between liquid, anti-reflective and CVD coating head-to-media during solar panel production, helping manufacturers maintain thin-film coating uniformity, while improving yields and efficiencies.In the manufacture of traditional solar panels, a thin-film PV layer is deposited onto the silicon layer using a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) process. Additional layers are added and the PV module is then encapsulated between a glass panel and reflective backing, forming the Solar Panel Module. Capacitec systems are used during each of these steps.
In flexible solar panels, CVD coaters are used in the production of the Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO). In this case, a Capacitec parallelism sensor system is used to measure the distance in-process between the CVD coater head and metal carrier roll, in temperatures up to +600°C. During OPV solar panel fabrication, a Capacitec slot die coater gap measurement system is employed to maintain organic material coatings uniformity during PV production. Capacitec systems are also used to maintain parallelism between the Slot Die Coater and metal roller, as well as the parallelism of metal rollers during the encapsulation stage.
