A Bird´s Eye View of Materials and Manufacturing Processes for Photovoltaic Cells

Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect in 1839 in electrolythical cells, and in 1887, Day and Adams confirmed the existence of the same effect in solids. One of the first Photovoltaic Cells was made in 1954, in Bell Laboratories [1]. However, the practical realization of efficient PV cells has remained a difficult challenge 30 years later, in 2004. The need to continue in this pursuit is most pressing as the objectives for renewable energy generation imposed by the Kyoto Protocol, have been established. PV cells have evolved from thick film to thin film single layer cells, and from single film to multilayer cells, or tandem cells. Also there are many materials and manufacturing methods which are here surveyed. We consider inorganic materials, organic and hybrid materials in this brief PV cell fabrication survey.