Nanotube-Polymer Solar Cells - An Alternative to Silicon

Developing an inexpensive, renewable energy source is one of the most important scientific and technological challenges of our time. Solar energy is an inexhaustible energy source that could be harnessed to meet our growing energy needs in the future. However traditional photovoltaic (solar-to-electric conversion) technology is deemed too expensive to be a serious alternative to fossil fuels and even other competing, renewable energy sources. A significant leap in scientific and technological advancement of renewable energy sources will be required to displace proven, but unsustainable energy production methods. Nanotechnology is driving exciting new developments in photovoltaic technology. Advances in organic synthesis and characterisation techniques allows us for the first time to coax a photocurrent from organic, ‘soft’ molecules in a process that mimics photosynthesis in plants, potentially opening the way for cheap, ubiquitous solar cells. We present in this paper our studies of the self-organisation of conducting polymers and light harvesting organic dye molecules on carbon nanotubes, and show how these nanohybrid materials can be incorporated in a rationally designed “plastic‿ solar cell.