Carbon nanostructures for solar energy conversion schemes

Abstract

Developing environmentally friendly, renewable energy is one of the challenges to society in the 21st century. One of the renewable energy technologies is solar energy conversion—a technology that directly converts daylight into electricity. This highlight surveys recent breakthroughs in the field of implementing carbon nanostructures—fullerenes (0D), carbon nanotubes (1D), carbon nanohorns, and graphene (2D)—into solar energy conversion schemes, that is, bulk heterojunction and dye-sensitized solar cells.