A Review of Photovoltaic Cell Generations, Materials, and Emerging Bifacial PV Technology

Monaem Elmnifi; Yasser F. Nassar; Ibrahim Imbayah; Asiye Aslan; Ali Osman Büyükköse

doi:10.55524/ijirem.2026.13.4.8

Abstract

The generation of electricity from solar radiation is now one of the most promising technologies in sustainable energy generation because it is able to directly transform the radiation from the sun into electricity. Photovoltaic (PV) materials and PV cell architectures have been continuously advanced to further increase conversion efficiency, decrease manufacturing costs, and increase the number of practical use cases for solar energy systems. The review provides an overview on the major generations of PV cells (crystalline silicon PV, thin film PV, third generation PV cells: organic solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, perovskite solar cells and black silicon solar cells).The working principles, material properties, strengths and weaknesses, and technological problems are reviewed for each generation of PV technology. New PV technology also receives special attention: bifacial PV modules, which can capture electricity from the front and back surfaces of the PV module. Several design and environmental factors affect the performance of bifacial modules such as the irradiance on the back surface, ground albedo, module height, tilt angle, row spacing, shading etc. Thus, bifacial PV technology has great potential in the field of improving energy yield particularly in high irradiance, high reflectance environments like desert and semi-arid regions.In short, it has been a review of the development related to PV materials and technologies and future research lines on improving the efficiency, stability, lowering costs, recycling, and the broader application of advanced PV systems.

Keywords

Photovoltaic Cells, Bifacial pv Modules, Generations, Types, Performance, Efficiency, Production, Use, Innovation

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Cites this article as

M. Elmnifi, Y. F. Nassar, I. Imbayah, A. Aslan, A. O. Büyükköse, "A Review of Photovoltaic Cell Generations, Materials, and Emerging Bifacial PV Technology", International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering and Management (IJIREM), Vol-13, Issue-4, Page No-58-74, 2026. Available from: https://doi.org/10.55524/ijirem.2026.13.4.8