The fronteer of applications of ultrashort pulse lasers is currently set at the Femtosecond regime, that allow damage free machining of any material. The pulse duration threshold between damage free and processes with residual thermal damage lies between 1 and 50 picoseconds, depending on material characteristics. Pulse duration below 400 femtoseconds ensure the operation in the damage free region.

In order to remove parasitic emitter diffusion around wafer edges of Solar Cells, laser technology is gaining more and more interest. The technique is fast, suitable for inline process, and contactless for safe handling of thin solar cell wafers. We have developed a very efficient process that makes use of high power, high quality single mode laser emitting at 355 nm, resulting in a process as fast as 1.5 s/cell, with isolation efficiency as high as 99% (as mesured by LBIC technque).

ALIO Industries’ Z-Lift motion platforms were created to replace the inaccuracies of the ever present Z-Wedge vertical stages as well as reduce the footprint and improve performance of linear stages mounted in the vertical orientation. Every component in a motion stage adds to the total error. Since Z-wedges have a minimum of three machined components with complex angles, three sets of bearings, a motor via a coupling and an encoder, the result is a very inaccurate stage. ALIO answers this with a family of very high accuracy, high repeatable vertical stages.