Photovoltaic energy has its Nobel Prize: Albert Einstein

 

Back in 1905 Einstein published a famous article explaining four discoveries that would change the course of humanity. For one of them he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. Paradoxically, this award was not received for the Theory of Relativity but for the discovery of the photoelectric effect.

A few years earlier, Planck had discovered that energy is not emitted as a continuous "jet" but is made in tiny indivisible packets called "quantums". This means that when a body emits energy, it does not do so in the same way as water coming out of a hose, but rather resembles a long message in Morse code.

 

In his famous article "Heuristics of the generation and conversion of light", Einstein related this phenomenon to light and the emission of electricity in the following way:

Light is another source of energy. Therefore it is emitted, as Planck predicted, in small indivisible packets that would be called photons. These small particles colliding with certain materials would cause some electrons to jump. If the effect were carried out continuously we would obtain an appreciable electric current.

This discovery meant several things. On the one hand, the verification that light sometimes behaves like small particles and, on the other, that it is capable of interacting with matter, producing appreciable effects on it.

Einstein discovered the principle of solar panels.

The most obvious use of the photoelectric effect are cells or solar cells. It is about collecting in the most efficient way possible all the photons that reach a material to convert them into electric current. Use the principle described by Einstein in the purest way possible. Light generating electricity.

Lubio Lenin Cardozo, installer of photovoltaic systems