Despite a surge in solar cell R&D in recent years involving emerging materials such as organics and perovskites, the solar cell industry continues to favor inorganic crystalline silicon photovoltaics. While thin-film solar cells offer several advantages—including lower manufacturing costs—long-term stability of crystalline silicon solar cells, which are typically thicker, tips the scale in their favor, according to Rana Biswas, a senior scientist at Ames Laboratory, who has been studying solar cell materials and architectures for two decades.