The research proﬁling method applied to nano-enhanced, thin-ﬁlm solar cells Ying Guo 1 , Lu Huang 1 and Alan L. Porter 2 1 School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 Zhongguancun South Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China 100081. violet7376@gmail.com; huanglu628@163.com 2 Technology Policy and Assessment Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332–0345, USA. alan.porter@isye.gatech.edu Nanotechnology-enhanced thin-ﬁlm solar cells constitute promising solar energy solutions and an important emerging application of nanotechnology. This paper proﬁles the research patterns via ‘tech mining’ to capture key technological attributes, leading actors and networks. We compare the leading countries, and key organizations, in terms of R&D quantity, impact and diversity. We ﬁnd that India is a leader in this ﬁeld, which is a little surprising. India and China show strong trends of relative increase in both research activity and impact. One German organization appears as especially productive and the central node in Germany’s research network, which contrasts with the diffused network of the United States. Interna- tional collaboration patterns also vary, with China particularly showing much less interna- tional cooperation than others. Some countries appear to share interests, but they do not show much cooperation – e.g., China with Japan. Research proﬁling, as illustrated here, can help an R&D manager or policy-maker locate one’s intended research activity among existing endeavors, to determine how attractive the opportunities are. Such depictions can also help identify collaboration opportunities and potentially attractive partners. 1. Introduction S olar cells, or photovoltaic (PV) cells, trans- form incoming solar radiation to electricity. The technology has a large potential as a source of renewable energy since the Earth receives many times more energy from the sun than is currently used in the global energy system. The mainstay at present is the silicon solar cell, accounting for 90% of the market in 2006. However these are costly to manufacture and have limited efﬁciency – around 14% in most production modules, but up to 25% in the laboratory (The Institute of Nanotechnology, 2006). Thin-ﬁlm is a more cost-effective solution and uses a cheap support onto which the active component is applied as a coating. Cheaper and impure materials are used and lower cost tech- nologies are utilized (Chopra et al., 2004). Also, incorporation of nanotechnology (‘nano’ – taking advantage of 10 9 nanometer scale properties and manipulations) into the ﬁlms shows special pro- mise to both enhance efﬁciency and lower total cost (Singha et al., 2004; Escolano et al., 2005; Honsberg et al., 2006; Aydil, 2007). Many nano- structured materials are now being investigated for their potential applications in thin-ﬁlm photo- voltaics. These are widely researched and hold bright market prospects (Shah et al., 1999). Thus, nano-enhanced thin-ﬁlm solar cells (NETFSCs) constitute an important emerging application of nanotechnology. R&D Management 40, 2, 2010. r 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation r 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 195 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA, 02148, USA