The Bell Telephone Laboratories Discovery: Ushering in Our Modern Age of Solar Photovoltaics

The year 2016 marks the 62nd anniversary of this historically significant technical event, the discovery of the modern photovoltaic (PV) device. Bell Labs scientists Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson were not planning to “invent” a device that would revolutionize our energy future. They did not envision that their 2-cm2, 6 %-efficient solar cell would lead to our world of electricity projecting terawatts generated from this simple device. They did not really foresee the surge of manufacturing and deployment in Asia, the embracing of the green energy benefits in Europe, and the paradoxical investment in these technologies by the petroleum-abundant Arab countries—nor the evolvement from those milliwatts of the 1950s to the multi-GW production of today. This paper goes back in time, providing some insights into the Bell Labs activities and the personalities involved—their motivations, their expertise, and especially the environment that spurred their ability to pursue R&D.