Patent ID: 7786376

Claim:
A method to manufacture a Schottky contact photovoltaic energy conversion cell comprising: using a roll of a flexible substrate material moving between an input substrate feeder and an output substrate receiver through a continuous flow in-line cell factory; and using a sequence of substrate processing tools within said in-line cell factory, said tools comprising physical-vapor deposition, metal plating, and pattern transfer equipment, wherein said material roll goes through the sequence to form interdigitated arrays of Schottky-barrier lines and pillars covered with a semiconductor absorber layer, the sequence comprising the steps: connecting a first array of a plurality of closely-spaced microscale pillars to a first electrical cell contact, said pillars and said contact are formed of (or having a top) layer of a first Schottky metal material with a work function selected for efficiently collecting photogenerated electrons; connecting a second array of a plurality of closely-spaced microscale pillars to a second electrical cell contact, said pillars and said contact are formed of (or having a top) layer of a second Schottky metal material with a work function selected for efficiently collecting photogenerated holes; and depositing a semiconductor absorber thin-film layer covering said first and second contacts and filling spaces among said pillars, for creating photogenerated electrons and holes.