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published by the Public Broadcasting Service and the WGBH Educational Foundation
written by Stephanie Viola Chasteen
How do solar panels convert sunlight into electricity? This interactive activity from NOVA takes the learner inside a virtual photovoltaic cell to see how two different layers of silicon work to establish an electric field, push electrons to metal conductor strips, and generate electricity.

Please note that this resource requires Flash.
Subjects Levels Resource Types
Classical Mechanics
- Work and Energy
= Conservation of Energy
Electricity & Magnetism
- Semiconductors and Tubes
= Semiconductors
Other Sciences
- Environmental Science
Thermo & Stat Mech
- First Law
= Heat Transfer
- High School
- Middle School
- Graduate/Professional
- Lower Undergraduate
- Informal Education
- Upper Undergraduate
- Instructional Material
= Activity
= Tutorial
- Audio/Visual
= Movie/Animation
Intended Users Formats Ratings
- Learners
- Educators
- General Publics
- application/flash
- text/html
- video/shockwave
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NOVA: How Do Solar Panels Work?:

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