Damage-free patterning of thermally sensitive CIGS thin-film solar cells: Can nanosecond pulses outperform ultrashort laser pulses?

Abstract

Nanosecond pulses are usually not considered as a suitable candidate for low-damage processing of heat-sensitive materials due to high thermal effects and significant melt formation. Many studies have shown, that CIGS is thermally sensitive material and ultrashort lasers have been chosen as the primary source for the processing of CIGS cells. However, we report on the P3 scribing of CIGS thin-film solar cells with the ns pulse duration at the wavelength of 2.5 µm – a wavelength close to the mid-infrared region and compare the results with the ps pulses covering traditional wavelengths of 355 nm, 532 nm, 1064 nm, and 1342 nm. In our case, 6 ns pulses at 2.5 µm wavelength outperformed the picosecond laser sources operating at VIS and NIR wavelength range. The minimal P3 scribe conductivity of 4.7 mS/m was achieved for ns laser patterning, corresponding to simulated CIGS module efficiency loss of just 0.01%. We proposed that high absorption in the transparent conductive oxide - TCO efficiently shielded the underlying CIGS with only a fraction of energy reaching the back-contact. Finally, results show that nanosecond pulses can be as competitive as picosecond ones for P3 processing of high-efficiency CIGS devices.