For thousands of years, humans have harnessed the power of the sun. Initially, solar power was used to produce thermal energy like heat or fire, even creating weapons through sunlight in Ancient Greece. In the late 1800’s, scientists finally started to understand solar energy — its details and discovered light from the sun produces electricity when exposed to specific elements like selenium or silicon.
With more research, the world’s first silicon photovoltaic (PV) cell was created in 1954 by scientists Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson. This cell was the first to power an electrical device for several hours at a time. Though it was relatively inefficient and small, scientists used this advancement and ran with it. Using the original 1954 panel as a foundation, solar panel technology became more efficient with every passing year, steadily increasing in popularity and decreasing in price. This leads us to answer the question: How are solar panels made?