A solar cell is an electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into the electricity through the photovoltaic effect. Usually the collection of cells used for making the solar modules are referred to as solar power. The phrase "photovoltaic" is basically taken from the Greek word meaning voltaic and “light”. This term has been in use in English language since the year 1849 and the photovoltaic effect was first identified by a French physicist named A. E. Becquerel. While discussing about photovoltaic effect, the name that will first strike out mind is Albert Einstein. He discussed about the effect of photoelectric in the year 1905 and for it he got the Nobel Prize in the subject ‘Physics’.

The modern photovoltaic cell was first introduced in the year 1954 at the famous Bell Laboratories. At first these cells were seen to be developed for different minor uses. This is because; the electricity cost produced was quite high in comparison to a cell, which gets produced approximately 1 watt of electrical power in the bright sunlight. However, the improvements rapidly decreased over the next few decades and the extensive use was seen in the field of space applications, where power-to-weight ratio was comparatively more than any other competing technology. Most of the time soar cells remains connected as a module. On the other hand, photovoltaic modules comprise a sheet of glass on the front side and allows light to pass while giving protection to the semiconductor wafers from scratch.

Usually, the solar cells work in 3 different steps. First photons hit the sunlight and get absorbed by the semiconducting materials, like silicon and the electrons get loose from their atoms and thereafter the array of solar cells converts solar energy to the direct current electricity. However, sometimes the efficiency of a solar cell may get broken down into the thermodynamic, conductive, charge carrier separation and reflectance efficiency and the overall efficiency is the product of all of these individual efficiencies. However, to get useful information about photovoltaic solar panels you can browse through some of the energy websites or you can read out journals, where articles related to this topic remain published.

Posted by : HomeImprovement
@ Oct 18, 2011