Abstract
Recently, a so-called “directly induced” laser ablation effect has been reported, where an ultra-short laser pulse (660 fs and 1053 nm) irradiates a thin Mo film through a glass substrate, resulting in a “lift-off” of the irradiated layer in form of a thin, solid, cylindrical fragment. This effect provides a new and very energy-efficient selective structuring process for the Mo back electrode in thin-film solar cell production. To understand the underlying physical mechanisms, a 3D axisymmetric finite element model was created and numerically solved. The model is verified by a direct comparison of experimental and numerical results. It includes volume absorption of the laser pulse, heat diffusion in the electron gas and the lattice, thermal expansion of the solid phase and further volume expansion from phase transition to fluid and gas, and finally the mechanical motion of the layer caused by the resulting stress wave and the interaction with the substrate. The simulation revealed that irradiation of the molybdenum layer with an ultra-short pulse causes a rapid acceleration in the direction of the surface normal within a time frame of a hundred picoseconds to a peak velocity of about 100 m/s. The molybdenum layer continues to move as an oscillating membrane, and finally forms a dome after about 100 ns. The calculated strain at the edges of the dome exceeds the tensile stress limit at fluences that initiate the “lift-off” in experimental investigations. In addition, the simulation reveals that the driving mechanism of the “lift-off” is the ultrafast expansion of the interface layer and not the generated gas pressure.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partly funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission within the project ‘Solardesign’, under Grant No. 310220 and by the German Research Foundation within the Project ‘Modelling in Nanostructure Technology’, under the DFG-Number INST 99/10-1.
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Sotrop, J., Kersch, A., Domke, M. et al. Numerical simulation of ultrafast expansion as the driving mechanism for confined laser ablation with ultra-short laser pulses. Appl. Phys. A 113, 397–411 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-013-7849-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-013-7849-2