Solar Cells, A History

Solar energy is one of the important sources of non-conventional energy. Here the sunlight is used to make electricity that is used for different purposes. In the process of producing electricity from the sunlight, the solar cells play a major role. These cells tap the sunlight and helps in the conversion of the same electricity.
[br]The history of solar cell starts from the discovery of photovoltaic effect. Antoine-César Becquerel was a French physicist who discovered that electrode, which can produce voltage if these are kept in constant contact with the light rays. This discovery was made in 1839.

After 50 years from this discovery, the first solar cell was developed by Charles Fritt. These solar cells were actually semiconductors that were coated by a transparent sheet of gold. It is true that these machines were not so effective and produced very small amount of electricity but at the same time, it also showed the way of development of these cells in the future.

In 1927, copper made solar cells were introduced in the market. Copper oxide was used in these cells to coat the semiconductor.[br] By 1941, silicon solar cell was introduced by Russell Ohl and the entire scenario started to change very rapidly. Further developments were in the field were made in 1954 a trio (Calvin Fuller, G.L. Pearson and Daryl Chapin) from the United States of America introduced the silicon solar cells that were much more efficient than the previous one.

In the 80s and 90s further developments were made in the field. At present different varieties of solar cells are available in the market like concentrator solar cell and gallium arsenide solar cells etc. that can produce nearly 37% electricity from the tapped sunlight.

The solar cells that are used nowadays can be also termed as Photovoltaic Cells that transform protons into electrons. These Photovoltaic Cells change the sunlight into electricity almost instantly and these are highly powerful. These cells are created with semiconductors like silicon copper and so on. These semi conductors are placed into direct sunlight and a certain portion of this sunlight is tapped by these semiconductors. The energy that is drawn from the light causes free flow of the electrons as the electrons become loose by the effect of the light. At the same time, the electric field present in the Photovoltaic Cells guide the electrons movement towards a particular direction. This flow is commonly known as current and these are drawn out of the cells by using the metal contacts that are placed on the Photovoltaic Cells.