The photovoltaic power industry is well established in many regions and despite the sometime negative perception the end user demand in 2011 was strong and the total market for new installations passed the 26 GW mark
"Combining these traits and achieving large-scale patterning could enable a wide range of practical applications, such as energy-generating solar windows, transparent solar panels, and new kinds of optical displays," said co-author Zhihua Xu, a materials scientist at the CFN.