Virtual hunt for solar technology yields initial results (! “The Clean Energy Project” !)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110816/full/news.2011.481.html

Published online 16 August 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.481

Virtual hunt for solar technology yields initial results

Theoretical screening method produces first sample molecule as researchers analyse 3.5 million candidates for solar cells.

Jeff Tollefson

Organic solar cells are less efficient than their silicon counterparts, but could be cheaper and more versatile.

US researchers have used computer modelling to identify an organic molecule with useful electrical properties - proof-of-concept for an approach that could soon yield new compounds to harvest solar energy in photovoltaic cells.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a theoretical chemist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues, used computational models to screen a family of organic molecules and identify those likely to be the best semiconductors. The team passed the finding to researchers at Stanford University in California, who have now synthesized the molecule and confirmed its properties.

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From theory to reality

The latest molecule is one of the best organic semiconductors yet discovered, in terms of its ability to transport electric charge. The study is published in Nature Communications today.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1451
http://cleanenergy.harvard.edu/

[phantom power]

1. I love chem-informatics

In silico FTW!