Laser processing of organic photovoltaic cells with a roll-to-roll manufacturing process

Flexible large area organic photovoltaic (OPV) is currently one of the fastest developing areas of organic electronics. New light absorbing polymer blends combined with new transparent conductive materials provide higher power conversion efficiencies while new and improved production methods are developed to achieve higher throughput at reduced cost. A typical OPV is formed by TCO layers as the transparent front contact and polymers as active layer as well as interface layer between active layer and front contact. The several materials have to be patterned in order to allow for a row connection of the solar cell. 3D-Micromac used ultra-short pulsed lasers to evaluate the applicability of various wavelengths for the selective ablation of the indium tin oxide (ITO) layer and the selective ablation of the bulk hetero junction (BHJ) consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) on top of a Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) without damaging the ITO. These lasers in combination with high performance galvanometer scanning systems achieve superior scribing quality without damaging the substrate. With scribing speeds of 10 m/s and up it is possible to integrate this technology into a roll-to-roll manufacturing tool. The functionality of an OPV usually also requires an annealing step, especially when using a BHJ for the active layer consisting of P3HT:PCBM, to optimize the layers structure and therewith the efficiency of the solar cell (typically by thermal treatment, e.g. oven). The process of laser annealing was investigated using a short-pulsed laser with a wavelength close to the absorption maximum of the BHJ.