Laser-controlled ablation of individual layers in glass/TCO/thin-film silicon/metal structures is essential for cell isolation and monolithic interconnection in thin-film silicon photovoltaic technologies. More recently, the potential application of laser scribing techniques for the development of photovoltaic matrix position sensors based on a-Si:H has generated much activity, requiring an excellent control in laser-generated patterns obtained by direct material ablation. This work is aimed to determine process parametric windows for a-Si:H thin-film ablation processes using UV ns laser sources in thin-film a-Si:H-based devices. The study is focussed on direct writing techniques using UV sources. We present ablation threshold measurements and process quality assessment using advanced optical microscopy techniques. Moreover only fully commercial laser sources in the ns regime has been used, bearing in mind that thin film based photovoltaic technologies are still demanding further reduction in production costs and, nowadays, ultrafast sources are beyond their scope both for the investment and running cost of those equipments. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.