German approach might energize solar industry

Although thin-film solar isn’t new, the German approach offers promising refinements that could make this process more competitive with the more common practice of using slices of silicon — called crystalline solar — to convert sunlight into electricity.

Interest in thin-film solar has been on the rise recently owing to price increases in the most commonly used semiconductor material, silicon. Whether this new process, now backed by Applied Materials, accelerates cost reduction and ultimately a wider adoption of solar power remains to be seen. But this development is indicative of the current ferment in solar, as rising oil prices and global warming worries fuel a range of approaches to making the cheapest system that can suck the most power out of sunlight.
San Francisco Chronicle