NOVELTY - Making unit cells involves: providing optically transparent substrate having thickness, back surface region, and front surface region including grid-line region; forming layered structure having film of photovoltaic materials overlying metal layer; transferring substrate having layered structure; aligning laser beam from back surface region through thickness of substrate to illuminate first region within grid-line regions; subjecting metal layer overlying first region to absorb energy from laser beam; and scanning laser beam from first to second regions.    USE - For manufacturing unit cells, useful for thin film photovoltaic device (claimed), and for manufacture of a solar module.    ADVANTAGE - The process is easy to use process that relies upon conventional technology that is nanotechnology based; provides a thin film based solar module with higher efficiencies (i.e. greater than 10-20%) in converting sunlight into electrical power using a multiple junction design; and uses large scale and environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques, which eliminate the use of solvent for cleaning the side surface and reduce running costs associated with the manufacture of the photovoltaic devices, particularly, the side surface of the thin film photovoltaic devices exposed after laser separation process is completely cleaned without any shorting between layers of the thin film.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - Manufacturing unit cells involves: providing an optically transparent substrate having a thickness, a back surface region, and a front surface region including at least one grid-line region; forming a layered structure including at least one film of photovoltaic materials overlying a metal layer, where the metal layer overlies the front surface region; transferring the optically transparent substrate having the layered structure; aligning a laser beam from the back surface region through the thickness of the optically transparent substrate to illuminate a first region within the grid-line regions; subjecting a portion of the metal layer overlying the first region to absorb energy from the laser beam to separate a first portion of the layered structure from the first region; scanning the laser beam from the first region to a second region along the grid-line regions to cause formation of unit cells of the layered structure; and providing the unit cells.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows a simplified flowchart of a method for forming unit cells.