Optimization of microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cell isolation processing parameters using ultraviolet laser

This study used ultraviolet laser to perform the microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cell isolation scribing process, and applied the Taguchi method and an L₁₈ orthogonal array to plan the experiment. The isolation scribing materials included ZnO:Al, AZO transparent conductive film with a thickness of 200 nm, microcrystalline silicon thin film at 38% crystallinity and of thickness of 500 nm, and the aluminum back contact layer with a thickness of 300 nm. The main objective was to ensure the success of isolation scribing. After laser scribing isolation, using the minimum scribing line width, the flattest trough bottom, and the minimum processing edge surface bumps as the quality characteristics, this study performed main effect analysis and applied the ANOVA (analysis of variance) theory of the Taguchi method to identify the single quality optimal parameter. It then employed the hierarchical structure of the AHP (analytic hierarchy process) theory to establish the positive contrast matrix. After consistency verification, global weight calculation, and priority sequencing, the optimal multi-attribute parameters were obtained. Finally, the experimental results were verified by a Taguchi confirmation experiment and confidence interval calculation. The minimum scribing line width of AZO (200 nm) was 45.6 μm, the minimum scribing line width of the microcrystalline silicon (at 38% crystallinity) was 50.63 μm and the minimum line width of the aluminum thin film (300 nm) was 30.96 μm. The confirmation experiment results were within the 95% confidence interval, verifying that using ultraviolet laser in the isolation scribing process for microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cell has high reproducibility.