Silicon, both for its physical semiconductor properties and for
historical-economic reasons, is the reference material for manufacturing solar cells. It is, after oxygen, the second most abundant element on the planet, representing 25.7% by weight, of the earth's crust

The electronics industry, in just a little more than half a century, has developed efficient silicon processing procedures that have enabled industries to effectively exploit the element, offering large quantities of raw material to the system with an excellent quality-price ratio. As a consequence, the market was also able to benefit from of considerable advantages, consider for example the reduction in the cost of electronic devices.

Crystalline silicon is classified as:
• monocrystalline silicon: with a single lattice;
the surface of the cell has a dark and uniform color.

• polycrystalline silicon: the lattice is a set of consolidated sublattices; the surface of the cell has a color tending towards blue with iridescent reflections.