Selective ablation of thin Mo and TCO films with femtosecond laser pulses for structuring thin film solar cells

We report on recent results on selective ablation of TCO (SnO2, ZnO) and metallic layers as a possible process for structuring thin film solar cells. The multipulse ablation thresholds determined for substrate and various thin films show a parameter window where the films can be completely removed by a single scan without at the same time damaging the underlying material. By employing ultrashort pulsed lasers, nonthermal ablation at repetition rates up to the megahertz regime enables high quality structuring combined with process speeds meeting industrial demands.