History of Photovoltaic Solar Cells

A solar photovoltaic system is one which takes light from the sun and turns if into electricity. In doing so, it produces no emissions or harmful waste, and does so completely silently!

None of this would be possible if it hadn’t been for the work of French Physicist Edmund Becquerel, who in 1839, discovered the photovoltaic effect. In fact, Becquerel is a bit of an inspiration for young Evil Geniuses wanting to experiment with solar energy, as he made his discoveries when he was only 19! In 1883, Charles Fritts, an American inventor, devised the first practical solar cell, when he took some selenium and covered it with a fine coating of gold.

His cell wasn’t particularly efficient, with 1% or so conversion efficiency from light to electricity; however, his design of cell later found applications as a sensor in early cameras to detect the light level-being used to “sense” light rather than to generate power in any real quantity. Albert Einstein went on to further develop the theory of the nature of light and the mechanism through which the photoelectric effect works, the discovery was considered so important that he won the Nobel Prize in 1905.

Due to their high cost and low deficiency at that time, there were a lack of applications for photovoltaic cells. It was not until Bell Laboratories started looking at the idea again in the 1930s that Russell Ohl discovered the silicon photovoltaic cell. This device was patented as Patent no: US2402662 “Light sensitive device.” Now the efficiency of solar cells began to increase.

The first generation of practical solar cells was horrendously expensive, and this severely limited their range of applications. The advantages of using photovoltaic cells to turn sunlight into electrical power were initially appreciated for powering satellites and space-missions. With the space race of the 195s and 196s, there was suddenly a good application for solar cells-despite the cost, solar cells were suitable for generating energy in the remote reaches of space. Vanguard I was launched on March 17, 1958, and was the first artificial satellite to employ solar photovoltaic cells.

With the injection of funding and research that came with the space race, solar photovoltaic cells began to come into their own. Over the years that followed, solar photovoltaic technologies have been refined and developed and new techniques, and we will explore these now.

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