Who created the first solar panel?

As with any invention in history, it is a score of scientists' work that leads up to the product we know today. As for the solar cell, in 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel first observed the photoelectric effect in a conductive solution exposed to light. In 1873, Willoughby Smith discovered that selenium had photoconductive properties. Four years later, two other scientists observed the photovoltaic effect in solid selenium.

And then, in 1883, Charles Fritts developed what is widely recognized as the first solar cell. He deposited selenium on a thin layer of gold. That primitive solar cell had a conversion efficiency less than one percent. The solar cell timeline goes on from there.

The modern silicon solar cell that dots so many rooftops today was invented in 1954 by Bell Laboratories. It was then that people really started to grasp the potential of solar electricity. The Bell Labs cell had a conversion efficiency of 6 percent. More than 50 years later, we have solar cells topping 20 percent, which teases the imagination to wonder where solar cell technology will be 50 years from now?