In order to continue and to intensify the R&D efforts in CdTe technology CTF Solar is starting the buildup of an own R&D laboratory in Germany.

Up to now the R&D team of CTF Solar has used Laboratory space and facilities of the Fraunhofer Institute for Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP, Dresden. Laboratory equipment used partially belongs to FEP, partially to CTF Solar. Now CTF Solar has decided to transfer the CTF Solar equipment into own premises and to complete this equipment set with additional tools dedicated to the special R&D tasks of CTF Solar.

Parallel to building the new laboratory, the R&D team of CTF Solar will be reinforced, in order to support CTF Solar’s R&D roadmap.

The expansion plans of CTF Solar are part of the new CdTe R&D roadmap of CTIEC. This roadmap implies a close cooperation and task sharing of the CTF Solar laboratory with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Newark, USA, and the CTIEC Glass Technology Institute in Bengbu, China, which is certified as being one of Chinas National Key Institutes.

In this cooperation NJIT will focus on the basic research, whereas the CTF Solar laboratory will mainly work on the transition of results into manufacturing technology and production equipment concepts. Including the USA-based NJIT for basic research tasks, the CTIEC group draws its conclusions of the changing attitude of funding agencies towards the different photovoltaic technologies: While in Germany the CdTe technology de facto is excluded from public research funding, the USA are enforcing their funding efforts in this technology.

Nevertheless, CTF Solar will still collaborate with its present German partner institutes in the future, in particular with the FEP and the University of Darmstadt, however on a new, reduced scope.