The modern solar cell has celebrated its 60th anniversary. In an email to GreenTech Media, John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy explained that, "the silicon solar cell project got its start in early 1953 when Daryl Chapin began working on the problem of providing small amounts of intermittent power for remote, humid locations where dry cell batteries would degrade rapidly."

"At the same time, Gerald Pearson, an experimental physicist, was experimenting with a new silicon semiconductor material developed by Calvin Fuller, a chemist. Pearson found that the silicon was six times as efficient as was the selenium. [...] So began the Bell Solar Battery Project in the spring of 1953," he added. We are glad that the cell was created!