"The objective of this project is the interchange of knowledge and the establishment of cooperative synergies between the research and industrial sectors that are required for the development and industrial implementation of advanced photovoltaic (PV) technologies for the fabrication of low cost high efficiency Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGS) thin-film solar cells and modules. The project aims exploiting the potential of CIGS based cells for achieving high efficiency devices together with that of electrodeposition (ED) based processes for the low cost industrial implementation of PV technologies. Increase of the competitiveness of these technologies requires for a significant effort in the improvement of the efficiency of the devices, which in turn implies the need for a detailed characterisation of the processes and the identification of the main loss mechanisms in the cells.The main scientific objectives of the project are: a) to decrease the gap in the efficiency of ED-based solar cells in relation to that of devices fabricated with conventional higher cost PVD techniques and b) to improve the production yield and throughput by the implementation of quality control and process monitoring techniques. For this, a consortium formed by a research institute (IREC) and a company (NEXCIS) with strongly complementary competences and scientific background is defined. In this consortium, the strong experience of the group at the NEXCIS company on the development and industrial scale-up of ED based CIGS PV technologies is complemented by the solid background and maturity of IREC on the advanced characterisation of heterostructures and processes in CIGS thin film technologies, and on the application of Raman scattering based techniques for process analysis and monitoring. The consortium covers a broad range of expertises in deposition methods, thin film devices, materials and devices characterization, and looks forward manufacturing and industrial production objectives"