Whatever Has Happened To Thin Film Photovoltaics?

Photovoltaics (PV) market has shown tremendous growth since year 2000 reaching over 90GW in 2017. Thin film solar technologies, which were once considered to be the future of low cost PV, however, have had smaller and smaller portion of this booming market, after they peaked at around 20% market share in 2009. This talk, while touching upon the reasons for apparent failure of thin film PV in the market place, will review the impressive conversion efficiency gains researchers demonstrated for CdTe and CIGS based solar cells. These new developments, which resulted in over 22% efficient laboratory devices, will be reviewed and explained through device physics considerations.