Product Code: ICAL07_302

Laser Scribing: A Key Enabling Technology for Manufacturing of Low Cost Thin Film Photovoltaic Cells
Authors:
Rajesh Patel, Newport-Spectra Physics; Mountain View CA USA
Dave Clark, Newport-Spectra Physics; CA USA
Jim Bovatsek, Newport-Spectra Physics; Mountain View CA USA
Presented at ICALEO 2007

Solar cells are becoming a highly promising alternative energy source for various markets. In last five years or so tremendous amount of research effort has been put in to increase the efficiency of solar cells and in reducing the manufacturing cost. It is believed that success in both of these areas will further propel its use in various markets. The two major structures pursued for solar cell manufacturing are, crystalline Silicon based structure and thin film (amorphous silicon or copper indium diselenide, CIS or copper indium gallium diselenide, CIGS) based structure. From the manufacturing perspective thin film solar cell has a tremendous potential for achieving cost reduction by leveraging flat panel display (FPD) manufacturing infrastructure. Laser plays a key role in manufacturing of thin film solar cells by scribing the pattern at each layer. We have studied the laser scribing characteristics of each of the thin film solar cell layers and have investigated ways to achieve maximum possible scribing speed. Laser scribing process is one of the key enabling technologies that can tremendously help reduce the cost of manufacturing of thin film solar cell.