Charles Fritts
Charles E. Fritts (* 1850 ; † 1903 ) was an American inventor in New York City . The construction of the first selenium cell (1883) is attributed to him.
The photoelectric effect in selenium was discovered in 1873 by Willoughby Smith and in 1876 by the British physicist William Grylls Adams and his student Richard Evans Day . Around 1883, Fritts built the first selenium cell from the semiconductor selenium, which was coated with a thin layer of gold. It was not suitable for the generation of electricity from sunlight on a large scale (the efficiency was only about 1–2 percent), but was used, for example, as a light meter in photography.
Practical solar cells did not emerge until 1954 in the USA (see history of photovoltaics ).
Fonts
- On a New Form of Selenium Photocell, American Journal of Science 26, 1883, 465.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Life data according to Marius Paulescu u. a. Weather Modeling and Forecasting of PV System Operations , Springer Verlag 2013, p. 1
- ↑ History of the solar cell, ETH Zurich, pdf ( Memento of the original from February 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fritts, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fritts, Charles E. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1850 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1903 |