Solar Nano tubes source: pubs.acs.org

This filament containing about 30 million

carbon nanotubes absorbs energy from the

sun as photons and then re-emits photons of

lower energy, creating the fluorescence seen

here. The red regions indicate highest energy

intensity; green and blue are lower intensity.

Image: Geraldine Paulus

source:theengineer.co.uk

MIT: Nanotubes act as Solar PV Antennas

MIT chemical engineers have developed a way to concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a traditional photovoltaic cell through the use of carbon nanotubes

.

Jae-Hee Han, postdoctoral associate and lead author; Geraldine Paulus, graduatestudent

and lead author; and Michael Strano, leader of the research team have devised a way to use carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms) to form antennas that capture and focus light energy, resulting in more powerful and smaller solar arrays.

"Instead of having your whole roof be a photovoltaic cell, you could have little spots that were tiny photovoltaic cells, with antenna's that would drive photons into them," said Strano.

Nano Antenna around a core of Semiconductor

The antenna would be constructed around a core of semiconducting material and the system would generate electricity by separating the electron from the hole and collecting electrons at one electrode on the inner semiconductor and collecting holes at the other electrode touching the nanotubes.

sourcedailytech.com

Related: Exciton antennas concentrators

Exciton antennas and concentrators from core–shell and corrugated carbon nanotube filaments of homogeneous composition

There has been renewed interest in solar concentrators and optical antennas for improvements in photovoltaic energy harvesting and new optoelectronic devices. In this work, we dielectrophoretically assemble single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) of homogeneous composition into aligned filaments that can exchange excitation energy, concentrating it to the centre of core–shell structures with radial gradients in the optical bandgap. We find an unusually sharp, reversible decay in photoemission that occurs as such filaments are cycled from ambient temperature to only 357 K, attributed to the strongly temperature-dependent second-order Auger process. Core–shell structures consisting of annular shells of mostly (6,5) SWNTs (E_g=1.21 eV) and cores with bandgaps smaller than those of the shell (E_g=1.17 eV (7,5)–0.98 eV (8,7)) demonstrate the concentration concept: broadband absorption in the ultraviolet–near-infrared wavelength regime provides quasi-singular photoemission at the (8,7) SWNTs. This approach demonstrates the potential of specifically designed collections of nanotubes to manipulate and concentrate excitons in unique ways.

source: nature.com

Rusnano Technologies, Russia Nanaotech

http://www.rusnano.com

which involves technology that handles substances at a nano level, or a scale of about one billionth of a meter, has received $10 billion from the state.

Chubais

Born in Belarus into an army family, Chubais kicked off his political career in Russia's city of St Petersburg

One of the architects of Russia's chaotic transition to capitalism, Anatoly Chubais is bidding to remodel the economy once again with $10 billion in state cash to foster high-technology companies.

A stocky, ginger-haired economist, Chubais, 55, is still widely blamed in Russia for exacerbating the economic collapse of the early 1990s by allowing a small group of tycoons to enrich themselves in a wave of privatizations.

Anatoly Chubais, CEO of RusNanoTechnologies, speaks with journalists at Reuters office in Moscow, September 15, 2010. Leading Russian business chiefs, bankers and officials will discuss the outlook for investment in Russia and progress on its modernisation at the fourth Reuters Russia Investment Summit from Sept. 13-15 in a series of exclusive interviews.source: reuters.com