This paper will review the chalcogenide thin film photovoltaic (PV) solar cells, based on cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium diselenide (CIS) and discuss the potential for metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) to enable more advanced devices in the second generation of CdTe module production. The current generation of production methods is based on physical vapour deposition (PVD) or close-spaced sublimation (CSS). This paper concentrates on the less well-known topic of MOCVD of thin film chalcogenide cells, and in particular that of CdTe. Efficient CdTe PV solar cells (> 10% AM1.5) have been demonstrated from deposition of the CdS, CdTe and CdCl2 films in a single MOCVD chamber. The CdTe layer was doped with As and an additional high As concentration CdTe layer provides effective low resistance contacting without the need for wet etching the surface. The high level of flexibility in using MOCVD has been demonstrated where the CdS window layer has been alloyed with Zn to improve the blue response of the PV device and improve AM1.5 efficiency to 13.3%. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.