Gerald Pearson

Gerald Pearson was an American physicist at Bell Telephone Laboratories who worked with Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller to build the first practical silicon solar cell in 1954, discovering that adding a small amount of arsenic to silicon during Chapin and Fullers development work dramatically boosted the resulting cells electrical output. Pearsons silicon research, building on Russell Ohls earlier discovery of the photovoltaic effect in silicon, was combined with Fullers doping techniques and Chapins photovoltaic testing to produce the Bell Solar Battery, publicly demonstrated in 1954 as the first solar cell efficient enough to power everyday electrical equipment. The Bell teams silicon solar cell, with roughly six percent efficiency, was many times more efficient than any earlier photovoltaic device and is considered the direct ancestor of the modern solar panel industry. Pearsons contribution to the collaborative discovery helped move solar power from a scientific curiosity toward a genuinely usable electricity source.