What is photovoltaics?

Photovoltaics is a branch of science and technology that deals with the conversion of solar energy into electricity, using the photovoltaic phenomenon ... that is, generating electricity from solar radiation.

Photovoltaics are often described as: PV. It is the international abbreviation for the photovoltaic effect: PhotoVoltaic (PV): photo - light; voltaic - voltage.

A short history of the development of photovoltaics, in which Poles also participate:

w 1839 Edmund Becquerel notices the phenomenon of generating electric current in some materials subjected to irradiation, which he could not explain ...
only in 1905 Albert Einstein described the formation of the photovoltaic effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize,
w 1918 year, Polish scientist Jan Czocharski discovered a method of producing silicon single crystals, which in 1941 r. have become the basic component of the first silicon photovoltaic cell,
the first PV cell with an efficiency of approx. 6%, based on a silicon pn junction, was developed by 1954 r. at Bell Laboratories in the USA,
four years later (1958.), the first satellite powered by photovoltaic cells was launched into space,
od 1975 r. - first commercial applications of photovoltaics,
w 2013. patented is a new technology of thin-film PV cells based on perovskites, developed by a Pole, Olga Malinkiewicz,
the current research focuses on the development of a cheap technology for the production of PV cells, while increasing their efficiency and service life, mainly on thin-film cells.