Materials for Thin-Film Photovoltaics To Reach $3.8 Billion by 2015

• Getting CIGS mixture right—CIGS promises all the advantages of thin-film PV, but with conversion efficiencies almost as high as conventional PV. However, whether or not CIGS can keep this promise will depend on innovative materials firms. For example, the CIGS industry is looking for better formulations of selenium that avoid the volatility problems experienced in high temperature manufacturing processes. CIGS cell construction also makes the choice of materials for the top contacts highly demanding. NanoMarkets believes that such problems will be overcome in the next few years and that by 2015, the CIGS PV sector will consume a total of $1.1 billion in materials.