Amorphous Photovoltaic Cells

The position of the Department of Energy (DoE) reiterated specifically at this meeting (1) is that photovoltaic solar energy conversion will not begin to make a large-scale contribution to our overall energy production until 1986 at the earliest, and more probably the year 2000. It is the theme of this paper that the basic materials problems which have led to such pessimistic projections have already been solved and that, given an intensive program of development, economically competitive photovoltaic cells can be mass produced in the near future.