Our planets natural resources of non-renewable fossil fuel energy are fast diminishing and the harsh global warming effect is increasing every day. Solar energy is the most important invention that humans every made because it has enabled us to harness the power of sun to create a clean renewable energy source. The growth of the solar cells in the 19th century has taken on the most significance importance when we look at how important solar energy has become today.

You may already know that solar cells are the device that is used to collect and break down sunlight energy into DC electricity, making use of the photovoltaic effect, and that an Inverter is then used to convert that DC current into the usable AC form of electricity. The term "photovoltaic" has been used since 1849 and is derived from the Greek word "phos" meaning "light" and the word "voltaic" meaning "electric". The voltaic word is from the Italian physicist Volta. These photovoltaic cells are a simple but ingenious invention used to then create solar panels, photovoltaic arrays and solar modules.

The History of Photovoltaic

The first person to recognize the photovoltaic effect was the French physicist A.E Becquerel in 1839, but it wasn't until 1883 that the first solar selenium based cell was built by Charles Frits. Then later on Aleksandra Stoletov, a Russian physicist built the first solar cell that was actually based on photoelectric effect. Albert Einstein explained the photoelectric effect in 1905 for which he won a Nobel Physics Prize in 1921. The beginning of modern solar power technology was at Bell Laboratories in 1954, where Daryl Chapin and his colleagues invented the first practical device that converted the sunlight into electrical power. They experimented with the semiconductors and accidentally realized that the silicon doped that has certain impurities is very sensitive to sunlight. This finding resulted in the production of the first useful solar cells with the efficiency for sunlight energy conversion of 6%. The process of reproduction and evolution has been basis for the growth of different types of solar cells that still continues today.

Present Solar Cells

Selenium gave way to silicon as the major material to be used in solar cells. Up till now silicon has dominated the production of solar cells but there are several new types of solar cells that are gaining momentum; cadmium telluride, amorphous silicon and CIGS are among others. These semiconductors are famous for having created several different kinds of solar cells like polymer, dye-sensitized, monocrystalline silicon, Nano crystalline and copper indium. Solar cells manufacturers are now focused on the challenge of how to increase the photovoltaic efficiency whilst still reducing their cost.

Future Solar Cells

It's known now that laser technology can help to develop future solar cells production, as it can optimize the manufacturing costs and efficiency of the solar cells. This means that Solar PV system costs are expected to fall in the future to the point where they will become affordable for an average household even without government subsidies and rebates.

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