Quartz boat method and apparatus for thin film thermal treatment

1. A method of holding a plurality of planar substrates for thermal treatment comprising:

providing a tube shaped furnace having a first end and a second end, the tube shaped furnace being surrounded by a plurality of heaters for conducting a thermal treatment process, the first end having a door;

providing a boat fixture having a base frame coupled to a top frame, the base frame including two length portions and a first width portion, a second width portion, and at least one middle member connected between the two length portions;

mounting a grooved member on the first width portion, the second width portion, and the at least one middle member, each grooved member having a plurality of grooves;

inserting a plurality of planar substrates into the boat fixture so that the grooved member on the first width portion, the second width portion, and the at least one middle member, supports each of the planar substrates in a manner such that each substrate is separated from adjoining substrates by a desired distance;

loading the boat fixture into the tube shaped furnace from the first end; and

subjecting the plurality of planar substrates to the thermal treatment process.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the tube shaped furnace comprises quartz material and encloses a volume of a gaseous environment having at least selenium or sulfur during the thermal treatment process.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of inserting the plurality of planar substrates into the boat fixture comprises loading each planar substrate into the grooves in a vertical orientation.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of inserting the plurality of planar substrates into the boat fixture comprises disposing each planar substrate substantially parallel to each other.

5. The method of claim 4 the substrates are spaced apart with a desired spacing between substrates.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising mounting a further grooved member to the top frame for guiding the plurality of planar substrates into the boat fixture.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising replacing each first grooved member on the base frame by a second grooved member respectively on the first width portion, the second width portion, and each of the at least one middle members, each second grooved rod having a second plurality of grooves in a second spatial configuration.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the second spatial configuration comprises an arrangement of the plurality of planar substrates wherein each planar substrate inserted after insertion has a front surface directly facing a back surface of another planar substrate inserted in a neighboring groove, the front-front surface spacing being at least equal to or greater than the desired distance and the back-back surface spacing being substantially smaller than the front-front surface spacing.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the second spatial configuration comprises an arrangement of the plurality of planar substrates wherein the back-to-back surface spacing is substantially zero.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the front surface of each substrate comprises a photovoltaic precursor film including at least copper, indium, and gallium species.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of planar Substrates comprises glass having a form factor selected at least from 65 cm×165 cm rectangle, a 20 cm×50 cm rectangle, a 20 cm×20 cm square.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the desired distance for maintaining a convection flow between two neighboring planar substrates so that a temperature difference within each planar substrate can be less than 15 degrees Celsius at least during a dwell stage of the thermal treatment process.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the desired distance is partially determined by process parameters including a total number of the plurality of planar substrates inserted in the boat fixture, a dimension of each planar substrate, a spatial dimension of the tube shaped furnace, and structural configuration of the boat fixture inside the tube shaped furnace.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein the desired distance is further determined by a setup of the plurality of heaters associated with the tube shaped furnace including a placement configuration and a ramping rate of temperature.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the desired distance is further determined using a computational model based on a simulation system having a scaled down physical dimension and number of substrates.