Carbon nanotube photovoltaics can wring twice the charge from light
Carbon nanotube photovoltaics can wring twice the charge from light. Today’s solar cells lose much of the energy in light to heat. Now researchers at Cornell University have made a photovoltaic cell out of a single carbon nanotube that can take advantage of more of the energy in light than conventional photovoltaics. The tiny carbon tubes might eventually be used to make more-efficient next-generation solar cells. “The main limiting factor in a solar cell is that when you absorb a high-energy photon, you lose energy to heat, and there’s no way to recover it,” says Matthew Beard, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. Loss of energy to heat limits the efficiency of the best solar cells to about 33 percent. ”The material that can convert at a much higher efficiency will be a game-changer,” says Beard. Read the article at: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23471/and use the link for the full story in the journal, Science: http://sciencemag.org/