Principal Investigator Michael Strano
Both cost and performance requirements make semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) attractive as photo-absorbers for near-infrared photovoltaic (nIR PV) applications. Their solution-process-ability (which can substantially reduce manufacturing costs), earth-abundant source materials, and recently scale-able fabrication and purification may yield low cost manufacture, a limitation with conventional solar cell (SC) designs. Furthermore, such devices can augment the photo-conversion efficiencies of conventional visible-PV systems by absorbing nIR wavelengths that comprise approximately 22% of the solar spectrum but fall within a typical PV bandgap.