Similar to thin-film manufacturing, thin layers of photovoltaic material are deposited onto a substrate. The emphasis here, however, is on quality, rather than cost. This way, cell efficiencies of over 40% are achieved.

Industry Context

Conclusion With increasing interest from terrestrial photovoltaic module makers, there will be more entrants into this market.	Competition Naturally, some of the competitors have a space heritage, but there are a few entrants from the solar space too.


Substitutes With efficiencies of crystalline silicon products increasing, it could become a serious contender. However, in some segments, high efficiency can not be replaced by cheaper products.		Downstream In the terrestrial solar market, buyers are concentrating pv module makers.

Select Companies

Name	Country	Comments
Spectrolab	United States	Spectrolab uses a triple-junction cell technology with 32% efficiency. Being a Boeing offshoot, they are designed for space missions.
AzurSpace	Germany	The Quadruple Junction Solar Cell from AzureSpace using GaAs has a 32% efficiency
Risen Energy	China	Risen offers hetero-junction thin-film modules for the solar market with 23.8% cell efficiency.
Megasol	Switzerland	Megasol manufactures HIT modules with cell efficiency of 23%!