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Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure.
Eli Yablonovitch is an American physicist and engineer who,along with Sajeev John,founded the field of photonic crystals in 1987. He and his team were the first to create a 3-dimensional structure that exhibited a full photonic bandgap,which has been named Yablonovite. In addition to pioneering photonic crystals,he was the first to recognize that a strained quantum-well laser has a significantly reduced threshold current compared to its unstrained counterpart. This is now employed in the majority of semiconductor lasers fabricated throughout the world. His seminal paper reporting inhibited spontaneous emission in photonic crystals is among the most highly cited papers in physics and engineering.
In the 19th century,it was observed that the sunlight striking certain materials generates detectable electric current –the photoelectric effect. This discovery laid the foundation for solar cells. Solar cells have gone on to be used in many applications. They have historically been used in situations where electrical power from the grid was unavailable.
A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect. It is a form of photoelectric cell,a device whose electrical characteristics vary when it is exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules,known colloquially as "solar panels". Almost all commercial PV cells consist of crystalline silicon,with a market share of 95%. Cadmium telluride thin-film solar cells account for the remainder. The common single-junction silicon solar cell can produce a maximum open-circuit voltage of approximately 0.5 to 0.6 volts.
Martin Andrew Green is an Australian engineer and professor at the University of New South Wales who works on solar energy. He was awarded the 2021 Japan Prize for his achievements in the "Development of High-Efficiency Silicon Photovoltaic Devices". He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics.
Allen M. Barnett was an American research professor of electrical engineering at the University of Delaware. He was the principal investigator of the DARPA-funded Consortium for Very High Efficiency Solar cells. Barnett was the founder and CEO of solar-cell producer Astropower,Inc. He was also a Professor of Advanced Photovoltaics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) in Sydney Australia.
Stuart Wenham was,at the time of his death,the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Silicon Photovoltaics and Photonics and Director of Academic Studies of the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at the University of New South Wales.
Joachim Luther received his PhD in experimental physics at the Leibniz University Hannover in 1970.
Christopher R. Wronski was an electrical engineer and Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University,noted for his pioneering research in photovoltaic cells including discovery of amorphous silicon solar cell and the Staebler–Wronski effect.
There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be categorized into three areas:making current technology solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other energy sources;developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs;and developing new materials to serve as more efficient energy converters from light energy into electric current or light absorbers and charge carriers.
Solar-cell efficiency is the portion of energy in the form of sunlight that can be converted via photovoltaics into electricity by the solar cell.
Larry C. Olsen was a pioneer in the commercialization of betavoltaic technology. While working for the McDonnell Douglas Corporation in the 1970s,Olsen lead the development of the first commercially available betavoltaic nuclear battery. Several hundred of these batteries were fabricated and a large number were used to power implanted heart pacemakers. Olsen has published more than 80 articles in the fields of betavoltaics,photovoltaics,thermoelectric materials,and solid state physics. He has also earned several awards for his research,including the R&D 100 Award,presented each year by R&D Magazine to identify the 100 most significant,newly introduced research and development advances in multiple disciplines.
Antonio Luque López is a Spanish scientist and entrepreneur in the field of photovoltaic solar energy. In 1979 he founded the Institute of Solar Energy of the Technical University of Madrid (IES-UPM) and was its director till his retirement in 2017;he is currently its honorary president as well as professor emeritus in this university. He invented the bifacial solar cell in the late 1970s,today one of the mainstream solar cell technologies,and founded Isofoton in 1981 for its industrial production. He is,arguably,one of the fathers of the science and technology of concentrator photovoltaics and has been active in the research and development of high-efficiency photovoltaic conversion devices,inventing the intermediate band solar cell.
Solar power in New Zealand is increasing in capacity,in part due to price supports created through the emissions trading scheme. As of the end of April 2024,New Zealand has 420 MW of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar power installed,of which 146 MW (35%) was installed in the last 12 months. In the 12 months to December 2023,372 gigawatt-hours of electricity was estimated to have been generated by grid-connected solar,0.85% of all electricity generated in the country.
Richard Swanson is an American electrical engineer and businessman,retired founder of SunPower,a solar photovoltaic cell manufacturer.
Sarah R. Kurtz is an American materials scientist known for her research on solar energy and photovoltaics,including the application of multi-junction solar cells in robotic spacecraft. Formerly a research fellow at the National Center for Photovoltaics and principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory,she is a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California,Merced.
The IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference is the longest running technical conference dedicated to photovoltaics,solar cells,and solar power. The first PVSC was in 1961 at the NASA headquarters in Washington DC. The number of conference areas have expanded and now include PV reliability and solar resource. The conference has also had many diverse and distinguished keynote speakers like Sarah Kurtz who won the conference's William Cherry Award in 2012. PVSC is also where the most notable breakthroughs in PV are often first announced,such as record Solar-cell efficiency,new technologies like perovskite,TOPCon,heterojunction (HJT),and tandem cells,derivation of new algorithms,and discoveries of new phenomena such as Potential-induced degradation and light and elevated temperature induced degradation (LeTID).
Joseph Appelbaum is a professor (emeritus) in the Engineering Faculty at Tel Aviv University,and former holder of the Ludwig Jokel Chair of Electronics in the faculty. He is a life fellow of IEEE “for contributions to solar conversion systems”.
David E. Carlson was an American physicist who invented thin film,amorphous silicon based,photovoltaic solar cells.
Vasilis M. Fthenakis is a Greek American chemical engineer,environmental scientist,author and academic. He is a senior research scientist,adjunct professor,and founding director of the center for Life Cycle Analysis at Columbia University.
References
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- ↑ "Peter Iles". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
- ↑ "Canterbury's narrow win". Press: 3. 30 August 1948.
- ↑ "Teams Announced For North-South Match". Greymouth Evening Star: 7. 15 June 1950.
- ↑ "NZ university graduates 1870–1961: I–K". Shadows of Time. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ↑ "Cricket: London N.Z. Club". Press: 5. 24 November 1955.
- ↑ "California, U.S., federal naturalization records, 1843–1999" . Ancestry.com Operations. 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ↑ "Solar cell history" . Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ↑ "William R. Cherry Award". IEEE. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ↑ Iles, Peter A. (2004). "Photovoltaic Conversion: Space Applications". In Cleveland, Cutler J. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Energy. Elsevier Science. ISBN 978-0-12-176480-7 . Retrieved 11 February 2021.