Leveraging recent science advances in nanostructured materials, Nanosolar has developed a proprietary ink that makes it possible to simply print the semiconductor of a high-performance solar cell. This ink is based on Nanosolar developing various proprietary forms of nanoparticles and associated organic dispersion chemistry and processing techniques suitable for delivering a semiconductor of high electronic quality.

A key advantage of the ink is specific to an idiosyncracy of the CIGS semiconductor: Because it consists of four elements which have to be in just the right atomic ratios to each other, the ink serves a useful purpose by effectively "locking in" a uniform distribution ("by design"). The homogeneous mix of nanoparticles in the ink in just the right overall amounts ensures that the atomic ratios of the four elements are correct wherever the ink is printed, even across large areas of deposition. This contrasts to vacuum deposition processes where, due to the four-element nature of CIGS, one effectively has to "atomically" synchronize various materials sources -- a challenge with no successful precedent in any industry on a repeatable high-yield production-scale basis.