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  • Milestones
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Milestone 8

Sun power

Solar cells

Nature Materials volume 9, pages S10–S11 (2010)Cite this article

The game changer, however, was the development in 1954 by Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller and Gerald Pearson, also at Bell Laboratories, of the first practical solar cell. Having developed a method to dope silicon, they were able to fabricate high-quality p–n junctions that, owing to their purity, were particularly efficient in separating the electrical charges created by the absorbed light. Their first solar cells achieved an efficiency of 6%, which was an improvement by more than an order of magnitude compared with alternative designs.

A fundamental understanding of solar-cell performance was consequently reached in 1961 by William Shockley and Hans Queisser, who determined the maximum theoretical light-conversion efficiency of semiconductor solar cells. Over the next decades, efficiencies in light conversion improved slowly as purer materials could be grown. However, an optimum coupling of light into the cells and an efficient extraction of electrical carriers out of the device are also essential factors. Improving the former, Martin Green at the University of New South Wales in Australia developed solar-cell designs that use inverted pyramids on the surface to direct light into the silicon more effectively.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

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  1. Associate Editor, Nature Communications,

    Stefano Tonzani

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  1. Stefano Tonzani
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Tonzani, S. Sun power. Nature Mater 9 (Suppl 1), S10–S11 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2645

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