A Solar Cell is a Solar Device that receives sunlight and converts it into electricity.

Simple in its constitution., it was in the 50s developed at Bell Labs, and the first Solar Cell came out with an astonishing efficiency of 6%. At that time people anticipated to harness this energy as a source where they sought Solar homes. However, it could not be drastically adopted due to cost issues and until 70s energy crises they remained out of focus. It is clearly the early versions of Solar Cells that the mono-crystalline Solar Cell were used for off-grid/remote applications where price per Watt could be anything due to no cheap alternative to electricity. Mainly, the crystalline covered the first generation. Thick wafers in the beginning. The variation in first generation which is understood as a bulk semiconductor that's sliced into a thin sheet that can then be converted into a Solar harvesting device. With less contender technologies, the first generation technology not only embodies a lot of energy, they are expensive to make. You have to heat up semiconductors with high melting point, some refining etc. etc. So much so, you can not scale up to realize multi- Giga Watt scale.



This spawned the idea of making a different class of Solar Cells called thin-film Solar Cells. Instead of making a bulk material, that was then a Solar Cell you could make a thin-film, on a career substrate, that was the Solar Cell made at a much lower temperature.  But the amorphous silicon cell had still some inherent problems. One of the main instabilities, Staebler-Wronski Effect where the Solar Cell actually worked well but not without decaying in performance. There are several thin-film technologies, after the amorphous silicon Solar Cell, the Cadmium Telluride Cell, the CIGS Solar Cells, and many others. Problems like bad contacts, sensitivity to atmospheric components such as water or oxygen. The stacking, architecture, the way they are built up, the substrates they are made of (flexible to rigid, esoteric or toxic) everything contributed to infinite variations. Again meaning, that can not realize on large scale beside the speed of manufacturing.

With an increasing variability, 3rd generation of Organic Solar Cells lead to the Nobel Prize for three guys in 2002, comes up with efficiency at a much less cost. Organic or polymer photovoltaic have a huge learning curve, and a double-log plot is principally linear between cost and efficiency. The first two generations employ scarce, toxic or expensive material. Even silicon does not come in purity needed freely. The eco-toxicity really justifies the need for a third generation of Solar Cells. Especially the polymer photovoltaic are recyclable and can be decommissioned or disposed of safely in a clean manner.