Piero Sferlazzo, Senior Vice President of Veeco’s Solar Equipment business, says: “Veeco is now the only equipment company offering integrated production-scale solutions for CIGS manufacturing on glass using thermal evaporation sources for the CIGS / absorber layer. Customers can now choose Veeco to provide comprehensive, fully integrated equipment to manufacture CIGS solar cells, whether they choose to use our FastLine systems for glass or our FastFlex™ systems for flexible substrates.”

Thermal evaporation, as compared to other deposition methods, produces the highest efficiency thin-film solar cells and has the lowest materials costs with high material utilisation driving down the manufacturing cost per watt, according to Veeco.

Veeco’s FastLine systems can handle up to 30, 1.1 m x 1.4 m glass panels per hour.