VENDORVIEW
Lasers
have played
a key role in
high tech
manufacturing
from the beginning
A new light
and this is no differnt
with photovoltaic
manufacturing.
opportunity
The Rofin company
discuss a range of lasers manufacturing
and applications for PV
very high repetition
rates of up to 400 kHz
are used for ablating
20 to 50 micron wide
paths with scribing
speeds of up to
17
5,000 mm/s
www
.solar
I
-pv-management.com
n the photovoltaic industry‘s race to grid process technology for roll-to-roll processing, thin-
parity the relevance of laser based material film scribing and high-speed drilling.
processing keeps growing. In order to reduce
costs per Wp, intensive efforts have been made to Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing
increase solar cell efficiency on the one hand and Roll-to-roll processing offers potential for reducing
Issue V 2009
to continuously reduce production costs on the production costs while increasing flexibility in thin-
other. Independent of the solar cell concept, lasers film cell manufacturing. Flexible thin-film modules
have always played a role in the development of prepared in roll-to-roll processes can be fabricated
new production processes. In some cases in a on moderately priced substrates such as stainless
strong competitive situation with one or two steel or plastics. The continuous production
alternative technologies, but frequently as the key process is easily scalable and even existing web
enabling technology for a variety of innovative production lines can be rededicated to solar cell
manufacturing methods. production. As many second generation thin-film
modules are light and flexible, they are perfectly
For more than a decade now, ROFIN has been suited for building integration. A fact which
developing innovative solutions for every compensates for their moderate efficiency and
conceivable application in solar cell manufacturing. therefore the larger demand of space.
This includes drilling, cutting/scribing, ablation,
edge isolation and marking of silicon wafers as With more than 1.000 lasers installed in the
well as various thin-film applications. With a range photovoltaics industry and about 150 roll-to-roll
of lasers available including CO
2
, Nd:YAG, systems delivered worldwide, combining both
Nd:Vanadate, disc, fiber and pico-second lasers areas of expertise seemed only natural for ROFIN.
and frequency-multiplied formats, ROFIN supplies Laser processing within web production lines -
lasers for the solar cell production process. Current flexible packaging is currently one of the major
application research focuses amongst others on applications areas - asks for certain features. First
the further development of laser sources and of all, continuous on-the-fly processes require
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