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    Photovoltaic Effect: See Also

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    Frederic Wust
    The photovoltaic effect is the creation of voltage or electric current in a material upon exposure to light. When sunlight or other light is incident on a material, electrons absorb energy and jump between energy bands, generating an electromotive force that converts some light energy into electric energy. The photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 and allows excited electrons to pass directly between materials rather than ejecting into a vacuum.

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    Photovoltaic Effect: See Also

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    Frederic Wust
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    The photovoltaic effect is the creation of voltage or electric current in a material upon exposure to light. When sunlight or other light is incident on a material, electrons absorb energy and jump between energy bands, generating an electromotive force that converts some light energy into electric energy. The photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 and allows excited electrons to pass directly between materials rather than ejecting into a vacuum.

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    Photovoltaic Effect

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    Photovoltaic Effect

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    The photovoltaic effect is the creation of voltage or electric current in a material upon exposure to light. When sunlight or other light is incident on a material, electrons absorb energy and jump between energy bands, generating an electromotive force that converts some light energy into electric energy. The photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 and allows excited electrons to pass directly between materials rather than ejecting into a vacuum.

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    40 views5 pages

    Photovoltaic Effect: See Also

    Uploaded by

    Frederic Wust
    The photovoltaic effect is the creation of voltage or electric current in a material upon exposure to light. When sunlight or other light is incident on a material, electrons absorb energy and jump between energy bands, generating an electromotive force that converts some light energy into electric energy. The photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 and allows excited electrons to pass directly between materials rather than ejecting into a vacuum.

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    Photovoltaic effect

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    The photovoltaic effect is the creation of voltage or electric current in a material upon exposure
    to light.
    The standard and obvious photovoltaic effect is directly related to the photoelectric effect, though
    they are different processes. When the sunlight or any other light is incident upon a material
    surface, the electrons present in the valence band absorb energy and, being excited, jump to the
    conduction band and become free. These highly excited, non-thermal electrons diffuse, and some
    reach a junction where they are accelerated into a different material by a built-in potential
    (Galvani potential). This generates an electromotive force, and thus some of the light energy is
    converted into electric energy. The photovoltaic effect can also occur when two photons are
    absorbed simultaneously in a process called two-photon photovoltaic effect.
    The photovoltaic effect was first observed by French physicist A. E. Becquerel in 1839. He
    explained his discovery in Les Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, "the production of
    an electric current when two plates of platinum or gold diving in an acid, neutral, or alkaline
    solution are exposed in an uneven way to solar radiation."[1]
    In the photoelectric effect, by contrast, electrons are ejected from a material's surface into
    vacuum, upon exposure to light. This also generates some electric energy (as the ejected
    electron is eventually captured on another electrode), though there is typically a high photon
    energy threshold. The photovoltaic effect differs in that the excited electrons pass directly from
    one material to another, avoiding the difficult step of passing through the vacuum in between.
    Besides the direct excitation of free electrons, a photovoltaic effect can also arise simply due to
    the heating caused by absorption of the light. The heating leads to an increase in temperature,
    which is accompanied by temperature gradients. These thermal gradients in turn may generate a
    voltage through the Seebeck effect. Whether direct excitation or thermal effects dominate the
    photovoltaic effect will depend on many material parameters.
    In most photovoltaic applications the radiation is sunlight, and the devices are called solar cells.
    In the case of a p-n junction solar cell, illuminating the material creates an electric current as
    excited electrons and the remaining holes are swept in different directions by the built-in electric
    field of the depletion region.[2]

    See also[edit]
     Theory of solar cells
     Electromotive force in solar cells

    References[edit]
    1. Jump up^ Palz, Wolfgang (2010). Power for the World - The
    Emergence of Electricity from the Sun. Belgium: Pan Stanford
    Publishing. p. 6.
    2. Jump up^ The photovoltaic effect. Scienzagiovane.unibo.it (2006-
    12-01). Retrieved on 2010-12-12.

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