Solar Photovoltaic Cells outlines our need for photovoltaics, utilizing the sun's processes of generating energy; a field which is exploding in popularity and importance. This single, concise text provide a thorough understanding of solar PV, how these devices work, what can be done to optimize technology for scaling and future trends and its reality in the marketplace. This book contains a detailed and logical explanation, step-by-step, of thermodynamically-consistent solar cell operating physics; a comparison of advanced multi-junction CPV power plants versus combined-cycle thermal power plants in the framework of energy cascading, and a discussion of solar cell semiconductor resource limitations and the scalability of solar electricity