Laser patterning of vacuum processed small molecular weight organic photovoltaics

• Laser patterning of all layers of an organic solar cell using a single ps-laser.
• Protrusions (short-circuits) suppressed by oxygen plasma treatment of silver layer.
• Fabrication of tandem mini-module with a PCE of 4.3% (area: 64 cm2).

In this paper, we report on laser patterned vacuum processed organic solar cells using an infrared ultra short pulse laser. Laser patterning is performed on all layers, electrodes as well as organic layers, to produce fast, reproducible, and precise scribes. The structuring enables monolithically interconnecting several cells to mini-modules. For patterning the silver top electrode, a plasma process is introduced which lowers the ablation threshold and minimizes protrusion-induced shunt formation. Finally, we demonstrate the up-scaling of organic mini-modules to an area of 64 cm2 with a geometric fill factor of 94% and a power conversion efficiency on the aperture area of 4.3%.