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Accelerating Laboratory Thin Film Photovoltaic Innovation into Commercial Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Fred H. Seymour
Fred H. Seymour*
Affiliation:
[email protected], PrimeStar Solar Inc., 14401 West 65th Way, Unit B, Arvada, Colorado, 80004, United States
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Abstract

Alternative energy sources such as thin film photovoltaics can be accelerated by improving the rapid and successful transition from laboratory research innovation to commercial production. Most laboratory research and development is on a small scale and its production is in small volumes. It focuses on exploration, discovery, and understanding. When the successful innovation is commercialized, both the scale and the volume increase dramatically and the focus shifts to performance, reliability, yield and cost. This transformation can be accelerated by closely managing risk and by integrating the equipment design and the process development. Also, the cadmium telluride photovoltaic technology has properties that make it more amenable to rapid scale up to low cost and high volume manufacturing.

Keywords

photovoltaicthin filmdevices
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1165: Symposium M – Thin-Film Compound Semiconductor Photovoltaics–2009 , 2009 , 1165-M07-01
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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