Picosecond laser scribing for thin-film solar cell manufacturing

Economic downturn pushed interest in “green” technologies. Photovoltaic industry is one of examples where lasers have good opportunities of entering into main-stream technologies. Structuring and patterning of thin layer via selective laser ablation are one of the key technologies in the PV panel production. We discuss the results on the picosecond laser application in the amorphous silicon (a-Si) and copper-indium-gallium diselenide CuIn_xGa_(1-x)Se₂ (CIGS) thin-film scribing for solar cells using different wavelengths and a special beam profile. Both are of essential importance for the efficiency of the ablation process and for the productivity. Scanning Electron Microscopy and EDS analysis have been used to analyze the processing results to show benefits of used picosecond lasers.