Evaluation of Laser Drilling of Ni Film on Silicon for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

During the recent years great attention was paid to develop the production technologies of micro fuel cells with a few watts of output that can be applied in the portable electrical devices. Porous nickel is an important part on many types of solid oxide fuel cells. This work presents initial results of experiments on laser drilling of micro-holes in thin (~25 m) nickel foil and 200 nm thickness nickel films for the fuel cell membranes. The laser ablation and drilling parameters were evaluated using nanosecond and picosecond lasers running at different wavelengths. Higher pulse energy from nanosecond laser is more favorable for percussion drilling of the free-standing Ni foils. Holes as small as 2 m in diameter were drilled in the 200 nm-tick nickel film, but the process was too slow for practical applications. Fast drilling process by parallel drilling of Ni films on silicon was realized using the laser beam interference ablation with nanosecond laser, generating 532 nm wavelength.