Product Code: ICA11_M903

Selective Removal of Transparent Conductive Oxide Layers with Ultrashort Laser Pulses: Front- Vs. Back-Side Ablation
Authors:
Victor V. Matylitsky, High Q Laser Innovation GmbH; Rankweil Austria
Heinz Huber, High Q Laser Innovation GmbH; Rankweil Austria
Daniel Kopf, High Q Laser Innovation GmbH; Rankweil Austria
Presented at ICALEO 2011

Transparent conductive thin films (TCO) are widely used in the manufacturing of both flat panel displays and solar cells two market segments which are rapidly developing in the last decade. TCO thin films allow the electrical contacting of large active areas that is largely transparent in the visible spectral range.
In this work we report on study of the selective structuring of thin Boron (B) doped ZnO film with picosecond laser pulses at 1064 nm. The two structuring techniques i.e. direct and induced ablations are examined for this purpose. From comparison of the process thresholds for the both methods we can conclude that the induced ablation is more suitable for the structuring of the TCO layer, especially if low number of the laser pulses per location (N < 10) should be used i.e. higher process speed must be achieved. The disadvantages of the induced ablation are that the low cost glass substrate may exhibit changes of optical quality. In turn it might change the laser beam parameters at the position of thin film and, hence, make the structuring of the TCO layers by induced ablation more complicated.