Top Papers •  Top 20 papers overall 1997-February 28, 2007 •  Map of top 20 papers 1997-February 28, 2007 •  Top 20 papers published in the last two years 1997-February 28, 2007 Top Authors Top 20 overall 1997-February 28, 2007 Top Institutions Top 20 overall 1997-February 28, 2007 Top Nations Top 20 overall 1997-February 28, 2007 Top Journals Top 20 overall 1997-February 28, 2007 Time Series • 1 year • 5 year Field Distribution Field representation 1997-February 28, 2007 Read features, interviews, first-person essays, profiles, other features about people in a wide variety of fields, along with information on journals & institutions in the topic of Solar Cells. August 2007 Prof. Dr. Kees Hummelen July 2007 Prof. Dr. Ren้ Janssen June 2007 Dr. Christoph Brabec May 2007 Dr. Franz Padinger

The first solar cells, converting sunlight to electricity, were invented in the late nineteenth century. Now, as global energy needs grow and energy resources shrink, the promise of clean, renewable energy from sunlight is both ever more enticing and ever more practical.

The past decade has seen a host of new technologies emerge on the scene to challenge the primacy of silicon-based photovoltaic devices. This changing face of the research is reflected in our Special Topics listing of the hottest papers of the past 10 years: a half-dozen of the hottest papers are on polymer-based solar cells, including those based on inexpensive plastics and others on hybrid fullerene materials. Another half-dozen papers describe advances in solid-state, dye-sensitized nanocrystalline titanium oxide solar cells. Others describe the benchmarks on the way to 20 percent efficiency in polycrystalline thin-film solar cells.

The list of the top 20 most influential papers published in the past two years reveals an increasing focus on the nanoscale characteristics and constituents of organic solar cells. Nanorods, nanoclusters, nanowires, and quantum dots are employed in this latest generation of photovoltaics, all aimed at improving the efficiency and the stability of these devices.

Methodology

To construct this database, papers were extracted based on title-supplied keywords for Solar Cells. The keywords used were as follows: 

solar cell* OR photovoltaic* OR photoelectrochem* cell* OR solar power*

The baseline time span for this database is 1997-February 28, 2007. The resulting database contained 7,146 (10 years) and  2,470 (2 years) papers; 12,531 authors; 108 countries; 592 journals; and 2,795 institutions.

Rankings

Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year periods), authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1997-February 28, 2007 (first bimonthly, a ten-year plus two-month period).

The top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding percentages used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:

Entity:	Scientists	Institutions	Countries	Journals
Thresholds:	19	52	12	24
Percentage:	%1	%1	%50	%10

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