However, as all of these technologies normally use high-temperature deposition techniques, the best performance normally comes from cells deposited on glass.
In principle, the precursors can be deposited at low temperature using low-cost deposition techniques, lowering the final cost of the module.
"Thin" is a relative term, but most deposition techniques control layer thickness within a few tens of nanometres.
He also received the 1999 prize of the French polymer group for his work on the layer-by-layer deposition technique.
In light of this interest, advanced deposition techniques have been applied to synthesize these types of thin film heterostructures.
Often used is electron beam evaporation, or a range of sputter deposition techniques.
These deposition rates require proportionally better vacuum to achieve the same impurity levels as other deposition techniques.
The composites made by this sequential deposition technique do not have a segmented layered microstructure.
While the basic-setup is simple relative to many other deposition techniques, the physical phenomena of laser-target interaction and film growth are quite complex (see Process below).
Other deposition techniques being investigated include sputtering and hot wire techniques.