We report on a comprehensive study of picosecond laser scribing of gallium doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin films deposited on glass substrates using 355 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm radiation, respectively. In this study, we investigated the influence of front side and rear side irradiation and determined single pulse ablation thresholds for all three wavelengths. Good ablation quality with full electrical isolation, steep groove walls and a smooth groove bottom was achieved by 355 nm rear side processing with a scanning speed of 224 mm/s. Ridges at the groove rims were found to be between 15 nm and 45 nm high. At similar scanning speed, laser scribing using 532 nm and 1064 nm radiation resulted in a lower ablation quality due to a higher roughness of the groove bottoms or higher ridges at the groove rims. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.