A review on some of the key aspects of photovoltaic (PV) technol. and the ongoing effort to exploit the planet's largest energy source. It focuses on the inorg. materials: the core of current and developing PV technol. and a research area crucial to the future of solar energy conversion. This multidisciplinary research area brings together fundamental and applied aspects of, amongst others, materials science, synthetic inorg. and org. chem., photochem., electrochem., semiconductor physics and engineering.