Gerald L. Pearson was an American physicist who in 1954 produced the first photovoltaic cell that could produce a useful amount of electric power with colleagues Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller at Bell Labs.  Pearson and his colleagues created an array of several strips of silicon (each about the size of a razorblade), which they then placed in sunlight. The silicon strips captured the free electrons and turned them into electrical currents. Their silicon-based cell had an efficiency of 4.5%, several times better than selenium cells. The New York Times commented that this was “the beginning of an era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind's most cherished dreams—the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”

Pearson attended Willamette University in Salem, obtaining an A.B. in Mathematics and Physics in 1926.  After spending a year as a high school teacher he went to Stanford, obtaining his M.A. in Physics in 1929.

Pearson joined Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1929. He worked first on noise, then on temperature-sensitive resistors which played an important role in the telecommunications industry. Pearson obtained 13 patents related to thermistors. His career made an important turn when he joined the Bell Laboratories group doing fundamental research on semiconductor materials. He conceived and carried out an elegant series of experiments on semiconductors which were crucial in identifying physical models of behavior materials, p-n junctions and semiconductors devices. His experimental results were essential to the development of models of semiconductor behavior developed by William Shockley and John Bardeen, models which led to new device and system concepts in an industry just being born. His most well-known invention is the silicon solar battery, which evolved into the power source for satellite communications and space probes. He invented the solar battery jointly with C. Fuller and D. Chapin.

Stanford appointed him Professor of Electrical Engineering in September 1960 and he took early retirement from the Bell Laboratories. He developed a team of research students, garnered governmental support for his and their research, and established at Stanford the expectations of excellence for work and publication that had long characterized his research at Bell.

Pearson was elected to membership in both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers as well as a Life Member of the Franklin Institute and the Telephone Pioneers of America. He received the John Scott Medal from the City of Philadelphia, the John Price Wetherill Medal from the Franklin Institute, the Marian Smoluchowski Medal from the Polish Physical Society, the Solid State Science and Technology Medal and Award from the Electrochemical Society, the 1981 GaAs Symposium Award and the Heinrich Welker Medal, and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Energy Research Prize, 1983.

Sources

• Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Peter Saundry (Topic Editor). 2007. Pearson, Gerald L. In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth October 12, 2006; Last revised January 31, 2007; Retrieved October 16, 2008].
• Linvill, John G. , James. F. Gibbons and James S. Harris, Memorial Resolution, Gerald L. Pearson, Stanford Historical Society, Stanford University.