Properties of Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition Barrier Coatings and Encapsulated Polymer Solar Cells

In this paper, we report silicon oxide coatings deposited by plasma enhanced chem- ical vapor deposition technology (PECVD) on 125 µm polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) surfaces for the purpose of the shelf lifetime extension of sealed polymer solar cells. After optimiza- tion of the processing parameters, we achieved a water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of ca. 10 ⁻³ g/m ² /day with the oxygen transmission rate (OTR) less than 0.05 cc/m² /day, and succeeded in extending the shelf lifetime to about 400 h in encapsulated solar cells. And then the chemical structure of coatings related to the properties of encapsulated cell was investigated in detail.