Professor Lang Zhou received his Ph.D. in Dec. 1988 from Department of Materials Science & Engineering,  University of Science and Technology Beijing.  He received MSc and BSc from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1985 and 1982 respectively. He was awarded a Royal Society K.C. Wong Fellowship, in January 1992, from The Royal Society, U.K., supporting a research visit to U.K. In Dec. 2005 he had a subatical leave for research visit to Princeton Research Institute for Science of Materials, Princeton University.

Professor Zhou has been working in Nanchang University since 1997, as the dean for School of Materials Science and Engineering since 2002. In 2008 he setup the Institute of Photovoltaics and has been working as the dean.  Since 2007, he has been working on R&D and Education in PV, electricity storage and system technologies. He has authored or co-authored over 100 research articles, 2 books, and over 50 patents in PV, lithium ion battery and hydrogen technologies. He has achieved 5 successful technology transfers to industrial applications. He has received the following professional recognition or honor.

– Director，Key Lab for Photovoltaic Science and Technology of Jiangxi Province

– Director, Engineering Research Center for Anode Materials of Lithium Ion Batteries of Jiangxi Province

– Director, Technology Committee / Vice Chairman, PV Industry Union of Jiangxi Province

– Director, Research & Innovation Center for HAC-based Photovoltaic Technology of Jiangxi Province  (HAC represents  Heterojunction of Amorphous silicon / Crystalline silicon)

– Senior Member of Photovoltaic Technology Committee, China Renewable Energy Society (CRES)

– Chair of the 1^st an 2^nd Symposium on Development of HAC-based PV Technology, Nov.2018 and Nov.2019, Nanchang

– Honor:  Leader of the Year for Industrialization of Heterojunction-based Solar Cells, awarded in Mar. 2019, Wuxi, by Shanghai Solar Energy Society (SSES)

Potentials of HWCVD as a lower cost alternative for HJT cell production

Hot wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD), also known as CAT-CVD, was used for growth of the intrinsic and doped a-Si:H layers in HJT cell production before 2018, in both Sanyo/Panosonic and CIE. The average efficiency of the cell products reached a superior level of 23.7% in 2017. However, the mainframe development of the HJT cell production has chosen PECVD as the tool for the growth of the a-Si:H layers, and the technological development in the recent years has been focused on the PECVD route. Currently, the PECVD-based HJT cell products have reached a a cell efficiency level of 25.5%, while HWCVD has been left behind due to much less development efforts. The major reason for the present talk is that high cost of PECVD has now become a severe barrier for further development of HJT cells in PV industry, while the HWCVD offers an opportunity for lowering the cost significantly. Our efforts for optimization of design and processing of HWCVD-based HJT cells, indicating its potential to catch-up the development of PECVD route, along with other group’s relevant work, are reported. Other advantages of HWCVD apart from lower cost, as an alternative to PECVD in future HJT cell production, are also summarized and presented.