Hello Sean, I considered those before, but without much luck. Have you ever tried handling and cutting solar cells before?
Solar cells are crystalline, and are extremely brittle, whereas glass is amorphous, meaning that the solar cells have a grain structure that runs 45º to the edges of the cell (with monocrystalline cells), whereas glass does not have a uniform grain structure, so follows a fault such as a groove created from scoring, but better uniform strength.
I've found a couple of things with this:
- Scoring a solar cell using a scriber tears at the grain, giving an irregular surface with micro-fractures that bleed current.
- Diamond cutters need to run at high RPM with sufficient coolant, otherwise they tear at the grain, and I've found that removing layers using a diamond cutter rather than cutting straight through to be the best approach, but the friction still catches into the edge of the crystalline matrix causing tears.
if I can get access to a laser sorted out, would anyone be interested in seeing a video about it?
