The use and manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) energy has grown very rapidly in the last few years. Expected sales of PV are expected to exceed 15 GW in 2010. Recent advances in traditional wafer silicon, thin-film solar cells, and module technology have resulted in lower prices and higher efficiencies for PV energy. However, in spite of these advances, further rapid progress is needed to reduce the ultimate cost of solar energy to grid parity.

Silicon-wafer-based technologies have now regained impetus from more readily available and cheaper feedstock (following a temporary shortage) and will continue to dominate the PV market in the near future. At the same time, other technologies based on a-Si, CdTe, and CIGS will assume larger shares of the PV market. Because these devices are fabricated in thin films, they have potential for lower cost if the quality of the material and higher module efficiencies can be achieved. Additionally, with a dramatic increase in production underway, all technologies based on current material systems will gain technological maturity. On the other hand, this rapid expansion of the PV industry also brings new challenges—both in commercialization and cost reduction.

The special issue will compile papers on material growth and deposition techniques, material and device properties, device modeling and design, defects and impurities and their influence on device performance, and cell processing techniques that can improve device quality (efficiency and stability).

We invite researchers, academicians, and industry technologists to contribute original research articles as well as reviews related to various PV technologies—Si, CdTe, CIGS, organic solar cells, and third-generation solar cells. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• All research aspects related to current materials and solar cells
• Approaches for commercial production, focusing on precursor and feedstock materials, module design and processing, advances in device fabrication, and innovations for device fabrication
• New materials for PV applications, such as organics, quantum dots, and thin-film Si
• Advanced module design and fabrication technologies

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijp/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: