A bottom-up approach is presented for the production of arrays of indium
islands on a molybdenum layer on glass, which can serve as micro-sized
precursors for indium compounds such as copper-indium-gallium-diselenide used
in photovoltaics. Femtosecond laser ablation of glass and a subsequent
deposition of a molybdenumfilm or direct laser processing of the
molybdenumfilm both allow the preferential nucleation and growth of indium
islands at the predefined locations in a following indium-based physical vapor
deposition(PVD) process. A proper choice of laser and deposition parameters
ensures the controlled growth of indium islands exclusively at the laser
ablated spots. Based on a statistical analysis, these results are compared to
the non-structured molybdenumsurface, leading to randomly grown indium islands
after PVD
