All Fiber Laser Scribing of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 Thin-Film Solar Modules

State-of-the-art Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film technology allows the industrial production of highly efficient solar modules. A significant growth of CIGS-based solar cell production volume can be expected for the coming years. One of the critical manufacturing steps in module production is thin-film patterning which allows the monolithic integration of cell-to-cell interconnects. Today, solar module manufacturers seek to replace sub-optimal needle scribing by suitable laser processes. It has been demonstrated, that ultra-short pulse laser scribing can reduce the overall width per interconnect and increase scribe quality. A promising tool for picosecond laser-scribing is the fiber laser. Here we present the successful implementation of all fiber laser patterning of CIGS modules.