Compound polycrystalline solar cells:: Recent progress and Y2 K perspective

A historical perspective on the development of polycrystalline thin-film solar cells based on CdTe and CuInSe2 is presented, and recent progress of these thin-film technologies is discussed. Impressive improvements in the efficiency of laboratory scale devices has not been easy to translate to the manufacturing environment, principally due to our lack of understanding of the basic science and engineering of these materials and devices. “Next-generation” high-performance thin-film solar cells utilizing multijunction device configurations should achieve efficiencies of more than 25% within ten years. However, our cost-effective manufacturing of these more complex devices will be problematic unless the science and engineering issues associated with processing of thin-film PV devices are addressed.