From the Energy Transition Institure:
(The article is considerably longer, click the link if you're interested).
PV technologies are categorized by the type of material used in the cell's absorber (Figure 1). Wafer-based crystalline silicon (c-Si) cells are the most common type of PV cells (with a market share of around 93%). This technology is the most mature and benefits from high conversion efficiency. Crystalline silicon is expected to continue to dominate the PV market in the near future, as most solar PV projects are based on crystalline silicon technology.
Figure 1. Classification of Solar PV Cells
Some thin-film technologies made from semi-conductors have also become commercial and account for roughly 7% of the market. However, thin-film technologies are less efficient than c-Si and their cost advantage has been eroded by a recent decline in c-Si prices. New thin-film PV technologies are being investigated in the hope of achieving ground-breaking reductions in module costs and enabling novel PV applications by virtue of properties such as transparency and versatility. Nevertheless, these technologies are still at the research stage. Concentrated PV (CPV), which uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate and focus solar radiation on high-efficiency cells, is an alternative to concentrating solar power (CSP), but requires better solar irradiance than other PV technologies and is, at present, far less common. Figure 2 provides an over view of solar PV cell technologies and their technological maturity.
Figure 2. Solar PV Technology Maturity Curve1
The electrical and mechanical devices that make up the BOS are critical components of solar-PV systems. While some BOS devices, such as inverters, are common to most PV systems, the presence of some components depends on the application (e.g. whether the system is off-grid or grid-connected, sun-tracking or not). Among other developments, solar tracking systems and plant-level controllers could be instrumental in exploiting the full potential of utility-scale PV systems.