
The Kurt J Lesker Company has been providing Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) systems to support photovoltaics (PV) research for more than 20 years and continues to support scientists globally to advance this critical renewable energy application. Solar cells work by using materials that absorb photons from sunlight in a broad spectral range and in turn effectively convert this captured light into free charges that produce electricity. Modern commercial solar cells are mainly based on crystalline Silicon, which is a cheap and abundant semiconductor[1]. In recent decades, alternative thin film technologies based on materials combinations including Copper indium gallium diselenide (Cu(In,Ga)Se2 or CIGS), Cadmium Telluride (CdTe), amorphous silicon and organic photovoltaics (OPV) have emerged with high efficiencies coupled with good cell stability, low manufacturing costs and come with the advantage of being a thin film, being both lightweight and flexible[2].
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