Fritts, Charles Edgar
Charles Edgar Fritts, an American inventor, built the first genuine solar cell in 1883. His cell used junctions formed by coating the semiconductor, made of selenium, with an ultra thin, nearly transparent layer of gold. Fritts' devices were very inefficient, transforming less than 1 percent of the absorbed light into electrical energy, but they proved the viability of using light as an energy source. Fritts' work helped lay the foundation for subsequent improvements by Ohl and Pearson, and by his colleagues at Bell Labs in the 1950s. Werner von Siemens called Fritts' work as “scientifically of the most far-reaching importance", and his work was thought to influence J.C. Maxwell’s research in quantum mechanics.
Citation
Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Tom Lawrence and Tom Lawrence (Topic Editors). 2008. "Fritts, Charles Edgar." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth November 30, 2006; Last revised August 21, 2008; Retrieved November 20, 2009]. <http://www.eoearth.org/article/Fritts,_Charles_Edgar>