Lasers: a Key Solar Industry Technology

The solar industry is committed to further slashing the cost of photovoltaic renewable power. In manufacturing solar modules, laser processing takes center stage. Lasers offer additional benefits such as improving solar-cell efficiency through full-surface structuring of back contact cells.

Typical laser processes in the solar industry:

• Laser Structuring
  Full-surface structuring of silicon wafers

• Laser Cutting
  Fast cutting of crystalline solar cells and silicon wafers with high precision and low thermal input

• Laser Junction Isolation
  Precise, dependable electrical isolation of front and backside solar cells after doping

• Laser-Selective Emitter Doping
  Local, selective over-doping of crystalline solar cell emitters for improved efficiency

• Soldering and Welding of Solar Modules
  Fast and gentle method ideal for advanced cell designs

• Laser Marking
  Labeling of solar cells, e.g. for batch tracking

• Laser Drilling for Back-Side Contacts
  Modern cell designs, such as Metal Wrap-Through (MWT) or Emitter Wrap-Through (EWT), use lasers to drill silicon wafers. Depending on the design, tens of thousands of bore holes are necessary.

Learn more about the EU's 'Solasys' project – Next Generation Solar Cell and Module Laser Processing System – in which SCANLAB participated.

As an OEM partner, SCANLAB manufactures a wide variety of scan solutions suitable for usage in laser processing machines.

Learn more about our scan systems that you can use for the above-mentioned applications.