The scientists, building upon the work of Nobel laureate chemist Rudolph Marcus, have found that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) are ideal for PV systems because they can convert sunlight to electricity with little loss of so-called "reorganisation energy".

"What we find in our study is this particular system – nanotubes with fullerenes – have an exceptionally low reorganisation energy and the nanotubes themselves probably have very, very low reorganisation energy," says NREL senior scientist Jeffrey Blackburn.

In