The Mystery Flaw of Solar Panels

Seeing a solar cell on top of a roof in the late 1800s and on a Baker Electric Car in the early 1900s looks straight out of science fiction

I worked with three of the cited authors in this video on Gallium vs Boron doped Si to eliminate this degradation in my PhD thesis. Lovely to see it acknowledged and explained eloquently on Youtube 8 years later :-) Awesome channel, keep up the great work!

I'm an EE student and I'm literally studying a subject with semicondoctors, diodes and transistors now. I'm really glad to actually see all of the theory in play. Your explanation was spot on for understanding the basics. Another great video from one of my favorite youtubers

I think that the idea of floating solar panels, for use in pumped-hydro reservoirs, is a good one. The panels are cooled, and evaporation of the water decreases as more surface area is covered by the panels. Also, the infrastructure for distributing the power produced is nearby in the hydro plant.

That has to be one of the cleanest brilliant adverts yet

I have to say, I think the presentation on this one is one of the best yet. And I've always rated you very high up that list already.

Thank you! I'd been a tech helping design semiconductors since 1983 and 16 months after you published this video I saw and for the first time learned of "shallow acceptors".

SOLAR HEAT FROM 1943: My house, in Florida, had a solar powered water heater installed in 1943. The solar unit was a steel box, about 3 inches deep, with a sheet glass on the face. (This box was about 12 feet long and 2 feet wide, but these dimensions can be as big you want.) This box had a 1 inch copper pipe that zigzagged though out the box, with about 3 inches between the rows. There was also a sheet of copper lining the back side of the box. Both the pipes and the coper sheet were painted black so as to absorb the heat of the sun. The box was placed at a 45 degree angle, facing to the south. The pipe then went to a normal electric water heater, which heated the water on cloudy days. This was a simple, but efficient, system that was still in use when the house was sold in 2009.

As someone who designs and makes solar cells for a living I have to say I'm really impressed with how well you covered this topic! It's a complicated subject with a lot of subtleties and you did a great job explaining it to a general audience! Nice work!

This is the best brilliant advert I have ever seen.

I like how no one mentions the damage done to the environment during the production of solar panels. Nuclear is way more reliable and clean. And thorium is safer compared to uranium. There is a relentless lobbying against research regarding plants using thorium for fuel..

Very cool to see the robot arms I used to teach the wafer loading and handoff positions in action, the semiconductor industry has really opened my eyes and encouraged me to pursue a more rewarding career in the industry

8:23 My name is Bond... Covalent Bond. I'll let myself out.

That was THE BEST transition into a sponsor I've ever seen.

Pretty cool to take a time machine back to see how old solar panels used to work. All the stuff I install now is boron free in the doping process and doesn’t have light induced degradation.

This video is one of the very best explanations of the workings of solar cells I have ever seen. I teach teachers how to teach science to tiny kids in an elementary teach education program and this video has helped me understand how solar cells work better than anything else I have come across. I'm excited about sharing this information with my students and helping them develop the confidence to share it with their students. (Just a thought.) There is one thing that should be considered in my opinion. The word, "holes." The understanding that most people have about "holes" is a lack of something in a body of something. A hole in a sheet of paper. A hole in a field of grass. A hold in a wall. "Moving holes" is a concept that does not resonate with many people. No one has ever had a hole in a sheet of paper move to a different part of a sheet of paper. Etc. I know that "holes" are a term used as a short cut for a "position" in the semiconductor lattice that has an overall positive charge. But a student trying to understand this information for the first time can get completely turned around on just this one critical term. I think "holes" needs to be replaced with something else that doesn't have so much conflicting baggage.

This is the best visualization and explanation of semi-conductors that I've ever seen! Thanks for always bringing interesting topics :)

That was a Brilliant transition into the sponsor.

I really love absorbing as much information as I can on these solar panels. It’s a great industry to be a part of

That was the smoothest continuous segue into and ad I have ever seen. I mean the ones you typically get hit with come at you with cheap slap stick cliches you can see coming from a mile away.