Four pioneers behind the electricity-generating silicon solar cell have won this year's Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Martin Green, Andrew Blakers, Jianhua Zhao and Aihua Wang developed so-called Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell, or Perc, technology.
This transformed the efficiency of solar panels and is now built into 90% of all installations worldwide.
The team is to be honoured at a special ceremony later in the year.
The quartet will share a £500,000 award and a trophy, to be presented by the Princess Royal.
"Our winners did something wonderful, which was to increase the efficiency with which a solar cell converts light into electricity, and it was a really quite dramatic change," explained Lord Browne of Madingley, chairman of the QE Prize for Engineering Foundation.
"With their breakthrough we went from around 16-18% efficiency to something like 25%. That's a big jump," he told BBC News.
Today, solar uptake is rocketing as the world tries to move away from fossil fuels. Some estimates suggest that by the 2030s, solar will have more installed capacity than coal, oil, gas, nuclear and hydro put together.