USand Italian team develop world's first all-carbon solar cell
MITcreate breakthrough carbon nanotube PV cell to harness 40% unused solar energy
US researchers have developed what is claimed to be the world’s first
all-carbon solar cell. With the support of Italian company Eni, The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US has developed the cell, which
could harness 40 per cent of unused solar energy.
About 40 percent of the solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface lies in
the near-infrared region of the spectrum - energy that conventional
silicon-based solar cells are unable to harness. But the solar cell could tap
into that unused energy, opening up the possibility of combination solar cells
- incorporating both traditional silicon-based cells and the new all-carbon
cells - that could make use of almost the entire range of sunlight’s energy.
“This is the first all-carbon photovoltaic cell,” said Michael Strano,
the Charles and Hilda Roddey professor of chemical
engineering at MIT. “It’s a fundamentally new kind of photovoltaic cell.” The new cell is made of two exotic forms of carbon: carbon
nanotubes and C60, otherwiseknown as buckyballs.