Thermodynamics of solar energy conversion in novel structures

We present the analysis of the local production of entropy as a result of the interaction between electrons and photons as well as deriving a mathematical integrated approach to it. We apply the local analysis in order to prove the thermodynamic consistence of ordinary and hot electron cells and the integral approach to proving the inconsistency of some naive but credible proposals made for this purpose (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.