ABSTRACT
By this time, it is possible that the reader, now highly skilled at photovoltaic (PV) system design, would be interested in what goes on inside the PV cell during the process of converting light energy into electrical energy. This chapter is presented with the purpose of enabling the reader to become familiar with the challenges facing those engineers and physicists who spend their lives working on processes and materials aimed at reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of PV cells. Initially, the basics of PV energy conversion are presented, followed by discussion of present limitations of cell production and some of the ideas that have emerged toward overcoming these limitations. Most readers will have already had at least an exposure to the theory of operation of the pn junction and the semiconductor diode in an electronics course, so it will be assumed that the reader will at least be familiar with the basic diode equation.
