Abstract
Ablation thresholds were measured for silicon and silicon solar cells irradiated with a XeCl excimer
laser. Two ablation thresholds were identified for silicon: 1.4 J/cm2 in the low-fluence region and 2.8
J/cm2 in the high-fluence region. The ablation thresholds were correlated to the melting threshold
calculated using a one-dimensional thermal diffusion model. For silicon solar cells, the ablation
thresholds tended to be lower than those for silicon because of (i) the effect of the incidence angle and
(ii) reduced reflection on the micro-structured surfaces of the cells. This study demonstrated that laserinduced
periodic surface nano-structures (interspace of 200 － 300 nm) were produced non-thermally on
silicon solar cells irradiated with multiple pulses for which the laser fluence was below the melting
threshold of 0.5 J/cm2.
