Color Quantification for Process Monitoring and Appearance Control of Thin Film PV

Product color and appearance uniformity are a critical manufacturing consideration in any industry, including solar module manufacturing. These considerations become even more important as modules are increasingly installed in locations where aesthetics is a prime consideration, such as BIPV, automotive, and consumer products. Additionally, the interaction of PV materials with visible light enables objective color characterization to be a useful tool for control of film deposition processes. In this paper we describe our efforts, learning and results controlling product color and using color as a process monitoring and control tool.