Performance of Thin Film PV Mini-Modules in a Superstrate Configuration (CdTe) on Glass with Novel Fibre Laser Processing

A new pulsed laser technique based on Photonic Crystal Fibres (PCF) has been developed and tested within the European funded Alpine project for the improvement, in terms of precision and speed, of the existing scribing technology in PV modules through the usage of high quality beam fiber lasers. In this work we report about the first evaluation of the quality of the scribing process performed by innovative PCF lasers according to the particular patterning steps (P1, P2 and P3) which are applied on CdTe thin film devices realized in superstrate configuration on glass. A comparison with devices prepared with standard scribing technology is presented. The P1, P2, P3 scribing patterning steps have been evaluated separately in this work and devices scribed with the novel laser technology reported clearly either improved characteristics in two cases (P1 and P2 scribing) or worsen characteristics in the case of P3 scribing. In detail devices with P1 and P2 patterning scribed with PCF laser reported an evident improvement in Pmax of slightly above 5% while devices with P3 scribed with the novel laser technology showed a Pmax value about 3% lower than the reference one.