Energy From The Skies: Empowering Future Generations

The article discusses the development of photovoltaic technology. The first account of the use of solar power during war in western civilization was in the second century B.C. during the battle of Syracuse with Archimedes\u27 famed Death Ray. In the late 1800s and early 1900s many advances occurred including the invention of solar-powered engines, the discovery of the photoconductivity of selenium and its ability to produce electricity when exposed to light, and the construction of the first solar cells from selenium wafers. Photovoltaic technology was born in the U.S. in 1954 when Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson developed the silicon photovoltaic cell at Bell Labs. The different types of photovoltaic manufacturing processes are discussed