Solar Tech Takes Cues from Nature

Typical commercial solar cells are not efficient enough for the research team lead by MIT postdoc Dörthe M. Eisele, so they’ve turned to mother nature for answers. Inspired by green sulfur bacteria, the researchers’ new system consists of a self-assembling network of dye molecules that form perfectly uniform double-walled nanotubes. The nanotubes’ structures are similar in shape, size, and function to the bacteria’s unique light receptors. While the bacteria’s high conversion efficiency (98%) had previously been linked to the double-walled structure, the researchers have now revealed that such high levels of absorption are reached because the walls operate independently to collect differing sets of light frequencies.While the nanotubes cannot convert energy that wasn’t the point of the research. As Eisele states online, “We [didn’t] want to improve the efficiency of solar cells we have now. We [wanted] to learn from nature how to build entirely new light-harvesting devices.”