The Holy Triangle of Science, Technology and Industry for Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conversion

Abstract

Collaborations and co-creations within the “Holy Triangle of Science, Technology and Industry” have been governing the unprecedented progress in each and every part of the value chain of the photovoltaic solar energy conversion sector since the first discovery of the photovoltaic effect in 1839 by French physicist Alexander Edmond Becquerel (Becquerel in C R 9:561–567, 1839). Intentionally or accidentally discovered effects leading to converting solar energy directly to electrical energy were initiated innovation cycles in the photovoltaic power industry aimed at delivering workable, economically feasible products to serve end users. Despite the growing interest in photovoltaic conversion, the level of scientific understanding of interaction between light and matter had been somewhat unclear up to the end of nineteenth centuries. The frontline of scientific and technological developments in the field of converting solar energy directly to electrical energy were pushed forward continuously in the early twentieth century, with the better understanding of light and matter interaction combined with the discovery of the electron and nucleus. Despite the low converting efficiencies, scientist, technologists and entrepreneurs kept their faith in the emergence of a commercially feasible device to convert solar energy to electricity in the first half of twentieth century. At the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, the Bell Telephone Company engaged in controlling the properties of semiconductors by introducing impurities for silicon rectifiers and they discovered that illumination of a p-n heterojunction constructed between silicon containing gallium impurities and lithium creates a current in the external circuit. Following this observation, the innovation ecosystem at Bell laboratories surrounding fundamental research and development, technological progress as well product development focused their effort to improve the properties of silicon semiconductors and fabricating a solar cell based on silicon p-n junctions. In 1954 they designed a “solar battery” by serial connection of a solar cell to power the radio transmitter (Chapin et al. in J Appl Phys 25(5):676–677, 1954). Since then the extensive basic research and technological development efforts have been offering innovative solutions for photovoltaic conversion in efficiency, stability and manufacturing cost to compete with conventional power production technologies as well as other clean energy technologies. The progress in the each corner of the holy triangle follow complex and evolutionary road maps and the parameters of solar cells, modules and systems have being improved using innovative materials, devices, technologies for solar power sector different combinations. The emerging and novel technologies have been advancing in the technology readiness level (TRL) index from the blue sky research level (TRL1) to the system demonstration over the full range of expected conditions level (TRL9). This work aims to summarize the relationships in the holy triangle of science, technology and industry in the quest to convert solar energy into electricity since the first discovery of the photovoltaic effect in 1839 (Becquerel in C R 9:561–567, 1839). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.