Solar Electrode history

In 1860, Augustin Mouchot, a French mathematics professor, began working on solar energy after becoming gravely concerned about France’s dependence on coal.

Just three years later, in 1876 William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans Day applied the photovoltaic principle discovered by Becquerel to selenium.

Backed by Emperor Napoleon III’s financial assistance, Mouchot developed a “Sun Engine” to operate a small, conventional steam engine, and wowed the public by making a block of ice from the sun’s rays at the Paris World Fair of 1878.

In 1887, German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered the photoelectric effect, which refers to the emission of electrons when light hits a material.

Across the Atlantic, in 1888, Edward Weston was awarded perhaps the first two US patents on solar cells based on thermopiles.

Research on improvements in thermopile-based solar cells continued into the 1890’s.

In the year 1893, the photovoltaic effect is discovered by a then 19 year old French physicist named Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel.

For example, in 1894 US musician and artist Melvin L Severy secured two patents on optimising the orientation of thermopiles to sunlight.

In semiconductor materials, photons can knock electrons from their atomic orbits and, if connected properly by a circuit, could generate enough electricity to do "work". In 1913 William Coblentz received the first US Patent (1077219) to convert sunlight into electricity.

In 1918, Polish scientist Jan Czochralski produced a method to grow single crystals of metal.11

In 1928, Swiss physicist Felix Bloch set out a band theory to explain quantum behavior based on a single crystal periodic lattice.12

The next major advance in solar cell technology was made in 1940 by Russell Shoemaker Ohl, a semiconductor researcher at Bell Labs.

Chapin, Fuller, and Pearson’s work in the 1950’s is the foundation for much of today’s solar cell technology.

In 1953, engineer Daryl Chapin, who had previously been working on magnetic materials at Bell Labs, was trying to develop a source of power for telephone systems in remote humid locations, where dry cell batteries degraded too quickly.

The first public service trial of the Bell Solar Battery began with a telephone carrier system (Americus, Georgia) on October 4, 1955.

In the year 1956, the first solar modules were available commercially.

Then in 1959, Hoffman Electronics achieved 10 percent efficiency.

Soon after, they beat their own record with 14 percent efficiency in 1960.

In 1966, NASA launched the world’s first Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, powered by a one-kilowatt array.

H J Hovel and J M Woodall, High efficiency AlGaAs-GaAs solar cells, 21 Appl Phys Lett 379-381 (1972).

In 1973, the University of Delaware was responsible for constructing the first solar building, named “Solar One.” The system ran on a hybrid supply of solar thermal and solar PV power.

In 1977, the United States Department of Energy launches the Solar Energy Research Institute (National Renewable Energy Laboratory).

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House during his term as president.

Even by the 1980’s, selenium cells had achieved no more than a 5.0% energy conversion rate.6 Fritts applied for but never received a patent on his work.

However, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan ordered the White House solar panels to be removed.

In 1986, the world’s largest solar thermal facility, which was located in Kramer Junction, California was commissioned.

See eg, L. Fraas et al, Over 35% efficient gGaAs/GaSb stacked concentrator cell assemblies for terrestrial applications, 21 IEEE PV specialist conference 190 (1990).

In 1999, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborated with SpectroLab Inc. to create a solar cell with 33.3% efficiency.

M A Green, Silicon photovoltaic modules: a brief history of the first 50 years, 13 Prog Photovolt Res Appl 447–55 (2005).

Chapin, Fuller, and Pearson were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008.

In 2010, President Barack Obama requested that solar panels and a solar water heater be installed on the White House.

In 2016, Bertrand Piccard completed the first zero-emissions flight around the world with Solar Impulse 2, the world’s largest and most powerful solar-powered airplane today.

National Inventors Hall of Fame, Daryl Chapin: Silicon Solar Cell, https://www.invent.org/inductees/daryl-chapin (last visited 23 April 2020).

Finally, globally, the solar PV electricity generation is expected to increase by 145 TWh, almost 18%, to approach 1 000 TWh in 2021.