Photovoltaics years in Northern Europe. The term "photovoltaic" comes from the Greek φῶς ("phōs") meaning "light", and from "volt", the unit of electro-motive force, the volt, which in turn comes from the last name of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, inventor of the battery (electrochemical cell). The term "photo-voltaic" has been in use in English since 1849. Photovoltaics are best known as a method for generating electric power by using solar cells to convert energy from the sun into a flow of electrons by the photovoltaic effect. Solar cells produce direct current electricity from sunlight which can be used to power
John Read (inventor) after his death. John Read (inventor) John Read was a British physicist and inventor. He developed a rotating doubler electrostatic generator, used to produce static electricity, which he called a 'spectacle doubler' because it involved discs of glass. His work was based on William Nicholson's doubler. Reid lived in Knightsbridge, London and taught at the Knightsbridge Charity School. He made observations of the atmospheric electric field, which he observed behaved differently in different air quality conditions, in 1791 and 1792. This phenomenon is now understood as originating from the global electric circuit. Richard Lovett was the first British academic to