Motivation of the ALABO project was the simplification of devices by reducing the number of production steps and needed materials. The ultimate goal was the replacement of the four polymer layer system of OPV devices by just two or in wider future even only by one polymer foil. This objective was approached by integration of a barrier layer instead of using a separate encapsulation foil.
As reference system for such highly integrated devices organic photovoltaic modules (OPV) have been chosen. They are high-level state-of-the-art stacked and layered electronic devices. Thus, they served as a well-suited demonstration object for a scalable and general approach suitable also for other TOLAE devices. Without technological and economical alternative, laser ablation processes in various dedicated forms had to be developed to realize the interconnection of small solar cells to a full device in line. The ALABO consortium performed intense R&D work in four crucial fields of interest: material development for an high-performance, yet laser-suitable solar device stack, development of three different laser processing technologies with focus on barrier and opto-electrical characteristics maintenance even-handed, development and qualification of close-to-process characterization methods and the development of an industrially-suitable roll-to-roll machine concept for the continuous manufacturing of OPV with 1.2m web width.
All of these R&D fields have been addressed positively by the ALABO partners, the achieved results in their respective field of work significantly enhanced their competences, the latter being proofed by various publications.
The success of the project was demonstrated by the fabrication of OPV demo devices with state-of-the-art opto-electrical performance based on barrier-integrated design and thus, avoidance of front-side encapsulation foil.
