G24 Innovations Limited, a UK company (G24i), headquartered in Cardiff, Wales, manufactures and designs solar modules and high value products using the company's DYE SENSITISED THIN FILM (DSTF) technology. The resulting cells and products are extremely lightweight, durable and ideal for integration or embedding into a wide array of products such as mobile electronic devices, tenting systems, and building materials.

Gratings Incorporated is a company that received a STTR Phase I grant for a project entitled: High Efficiency Thin-film Photovoltaics on Low-cost Substrates by Layer Transfer. Their their award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and their project will apply high aspect ratio, nm-scale, columnar, and crystalline Si structures as templates for high-quality growth of thin-film GaAs solar cells on low-cost flexible substrates. Sub-10-nm Si seed layers are expected to facilitate growth of low-defect density GaAs films. The aspect ratio of nm-scale structures also serve as sacrificial layers for removal of completed GaAs solar cell. Epitaxial growth and characterization of GaAs films on nm-scale Si structures will be carried out at the Center for High Technology at the University of New Mexico. Successful phase I STTR research will lead to commercialization of high (~ 20 %) efficient, flexible solar cells for applications in a wide range of terrestrial and space environments. Multiple substrate re-use and inherent large area processing capability of Si will result in significant cost reductions. High quality heteroepitaxial GaAs growth on Si has been a subject of intense research. Due to its direct bandgap, GaAs is attractive for a number of optoelectronics applications and its integration with Si-based microelectronics has been a cherished goal. The lattice and thermal expansion mismatches with Si make it difficult to grow good device quality layers. We have recently demonstrated as the Si seed dimension is reduced below 100 nm dimensions, the quality of heteroepitaxial growth increases rapidly. The nm-scale Si structures are formed using low-cost, large area methods based on conventional integrated circuit processing methods. Successful research effort will lead to reduction in PV generation costs, and enhanced applicability of thin-film PV in terrestrial and space environments because in contrast with competing thin-film solar cells, GaAs thin-film solar cells will not suffer from light-induced performance degradation.

developed a technology that aims to allow for more efficient use of crystalline silicon in solar cells - a that could allow solar cells to generate electricity at costs competitive with conventional energy sources.

Isosceles is a company that received a STTR Phase I grant for a project entitled: Full Spectrum Conjugated Polymers for Highly Efficient Organic Photovoltaics. Their their award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and their project will demonstrate the feasibility of forming full spectrum highly efficient polymer solar cells from newly designed conjugated and potentially variable bandgap polymers that harvest visible through infrared light. The novel materials will be forged by incorporating Silole and donor-acceptor-donor moieties into the backbone and are expected to increase light harvesting and carrier mobility, and hence short circuit current output potentially by a factor of three over the state of the art. The key innovations of this work will also optimize energy levels to reduce voltage loss and further optimization of device structure and film morphology is expected improve fill factor. The primary objective of phase I is to determine the feasibility of forging full spectrum and high carrier mobility conjugated polymers that achieve highly efficient solar conversion. An ancillary goal of this work is arrive at an understanding of photophysical processes and device physics that will lead to optimal device fabrication during phase II. The environmental, societal and economic impacts of this technology are enormously broad. The ensuing abrupt drop in energy costs stemming from full spectrum harvesting promises to deliver stability and urgently needed relief to today's volatile oil based global economy. While photovoltaic (PV) production is already the fastest growing source of energy across the globe, the planned efforts of this STTR project are expected to disruptively reduce the projected cost of photovoltaic production in 2010 by a factor of 3. At a forecasted production cost of $0.70 per Watt, this research will demonstrate a technology that is competitive with the cost of electricity that is produced from fossil fuels. This technology will provide clean and cost competitive energy for home and industrial power, vehicle propulsion, consumer electronics, remote sensing, security, and an endless list of existing applications that currently rely on energy from fossil fuel.

MicroLink Devices specializes in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth of semiconductor structures for use in communications devices, and in the growth and fabrication of advanced solar cells for space, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and terrestrial use. MicroLink also performs engineering research and development services: it has collaborated on commercial research and development projects with many other companies, and has been a prime federal contractor on many solar cell, optoelectronics, and electronics projects.

Jem Enterprises is a company that received a SBIR Phase I grant for a project entitled: Tin(II) Sulfide Photovoltaics. Their project aims to develop photovoltaic devices based on tin (II) sulfide (SnS). The properties of SnS, including bandgaps, carrier density and mobility, chemical and thermal stability, and metallurgical properties, promise the possibility to achieve relatively high conversion efficiency given state-of-art process control and device design. In this project, close space sublimation (CSS) technique, a thin film fabrication method proven for low cost and high manufacturability, will be used to synthesize SnS. The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the potential to produce photovoltaic devices based on low-cost and environmentally-friendly materials. There is no doubt that solar electricity has attracted a lot of attention in recent years as an alternative and renewable energy source. However, most of the current solar cell technologies have one or more of the following issues that, (1) raw materials are not abundantly available; (2) toxic materials are used; (3) overall cost is high. This project will address these issues by developing photovoltaic devices using SnS, a semiconductor material that can be supplied on a massive scale and at low recovery costs.