Skoltech is an international graduate research-focused university that was founded by the group of world-renowned scientists in 2011. Skoltech's curriculum focuses on technology and innovation, offering Master's programs in 11 technological disciplines. Students receive rigorous theoretical and practical training, design their own research projects, participate in internships and gain entrepreneurial skills in English. The faculty is comprised of current researchers with international accreditation and achievements.

Skoltech Professor Albert Nasibulin: “We are working on all-carbon nanotube diode and photovoltaic devices”

A group of scientists from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), Aalto University (Finland) and University of Rhode Island (USA) proposed a novel method for all-carbon nanotube diode fabrication from macroscopic SWNT films and demonstrated their applicability in photovoltaics.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are a unique material with diverse exceptional properties, which could be successfully utilized for creating next generation flexible and transparent electronic components. To realize SWNT-based electronics, most of the studies in this field have been related to the manipulation of individual SWNTs for achieving rectifying behavior at the scale of several tens of nanometers. Diodes are fundamental semiconductor devices that form the basic building blocks of many electronic devices, such as transistors and light-emitting diodes.

“The present study opens a new direction towards the design and realization of next generation macroscopic PV devices fully comprised of SWNT materials” says Albert Nasibulin, professor of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology. “As we know carbon is one of the most abundant elements on earth. Therefore, solar cells based on carbon nanotubes will be cheap. Taking into account chemical inertness of SWNTs, we can fabricate panels, which can withstand hot weather and extreme environmental conditions” finishes Prof. Nasibulin.

High quality SWNT films prepared by the aerosol-CVD method used in this work were collected on a nitrocellulose filter and either directly employed in the experiments or transferred on a substrate for diode and light sensitive measurements. Depending on the contact area of the employed SWCNT films one can achieve both metallic and semiconducting properties. It was shown, the contact between semiconducting and metallic bundles resulted in the formation of the Schottky junction, which was carefully controlled as schematically shown in Figure 1. Researchers investigated I–V characteristics behavior between small bundles of the SWNT films (Figure 2). Moreover, n-doping of one of the films allowed observation of photovoltaic behavior at the bundle-to-bundle interface. The upper limit of photovoltaic conversion efficiency has been estimated at ~ 20% demonstrating that light energy conversion is very efficient for such a unique solar cell. Distinct from multiple studies of rectifying SWNT diodes at nanoscale environment this is the first macroscopic all carbon nanotube diode and solar cell that has been reported.

The results have been recently published in a scientific journal Nano Research (DOI: 10.1007/s12274-015-0785-z).

All-carbon nanotube diode and solar cell statistically formed from macroscopic network. Albert G. Nasibulin, Adinath M. Funde, Ilya V. Anoshkin, and Igor A. Levitsky

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 5.01.51 PM

Fig.1. a) The edge of the SWNT film observed under SEM, and b) SEM image of this film showing SWNT network. c) Schematic view of the contact formation between two SWNT films: Yellow stars symbolize the junctions between bundles, (1)–(3) represent three different inclination angles.

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 5.01.41 PM

Fig.2. a) I–V characteristics at minimum angles (black): “first touch” conditions, then red, green, blue and maximum angle – corresponds to magenta. b) I–V plots under dark and light illumination.

Contact information:
Skoltech Communications
+7 (495) 280 14 81

Share on VK