Photovoltaics is the direct conversion of sunlight into electrical energy using solar cells. All energy on earth is received from the sun through its electromagnetic spectrum. At any one instant, the sun delivers 1,000 watts (kw) per square meter to...

During the latter half of the nineteenth century many scientists and engineers were simultaneously observing a strange phenomenon: electrical devices constructed from certain metals seemed to conduct electricity more efficiently in the daytime than at...

As far back as the 1800s scientists realized that, through certain chemical reactions, sunlight could be converted into electricity. The first experimenter to successfully accomplish this feat was A. E. Becquerel (1820-1891), who built a device that...

Electrical current sources driven by a flux of radiation. Also called solar cells, these devices find use in special applications. See Renewable...

A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device that converts light energy into electrical energy by the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaics is the field of technology and research related to the application of solar cells as solar energy. Sometimes the...

Stephen Reucroft and John Swain teach physics at Northeastern University. One of the biggest problems with solar cells is they tend to wear out with time. Now David Cahen of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, may have found a way...

Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA) have developed a solar cell from titania nanotubes and natural dye that may have the potential to reduce the cost of electricity generated by solar cells. "Solar cell technology has not changed very much...

No question about it: Solar power is energy's latest "gold rush." New government subsidies in several countries have brought many new start-ups onto the market, where their stocks have exploded.Yet as we saw with the dot-com bubble -- and more recently with ethanol -- gold...

SunPower spwr beat analysts' second- quarter views on Thursday amid surging demand for solar power systems, but shares slid due to a weaker gross margins outlook as well as a planned stock and debt offering. The solar power systems maker more than doubled earnings to...