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human
Photoelectric effect and electrons explanation?

From what I understand, solar panels are made of materials that can be used with the photoelectric effect. Light reaches the object, and eventually the atoms receive so much energy that electrons break-off the atom and start moving freely. An example of these materials is silicon, a semiconductor. My question is, don't the silicon atoms eventually "ran out" of electrons to release, or where do they get new electrons from? I feel like I am lacking knowledge about this area nd would like someone to explain this to me, if the silicon atoms are constantly losing electrons which we are using for our electricity, wouldn't the silicon eventually "wear out"? Lose all its electrons?
gpt
So silicon doesn't have free electrons. You dope it with something like phosphorus called N-type doping to add electrons and boron that adds an electron-hole in the silicon lattice called P-type doping.

If you stick these different types of doped silicon back to back, then you have a diode. Which is basically what a solar cell is, just lots of diodes with electrons at the edge, a.k.a the depletion region.

So usually you'd shine light at silicon, and it absorbs enough energy that electronics become excited and move around, but now they can only flow in one direction. And you're right, and the electrons have nowhere to go, thus cannot flow.

So what you do is attach one side of the cell to the other side, so the electrons flow back into the other side, round and round. Seems a bit silly until you realise you can attach something like a transformer to the circuit as a means of extracting the electronic flow, a.k.a energy.

And that's basically how solar cells work, you string them together in series and connect it to an inverter as a means of generating AC power.

I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a solar farm testing their kit.

TL;DR, they don't escape. It's a closed circuit and they flow back into themselves.