'Harmful' effects paradoxically enhance solar cell efficiency

(Phys.org)—Dissipation and decoherence are typically considered harmful to solar cell efficiency, but in a new paper scientists have shown that these effects paradoxically make the exciton lifetime in semiconducting carbon nanotubes 50 times longer than before, which leads to a higher overall efficiency. The results provide new guidelines for exploring new photovoltaic materials that may offer unexpectedly high efficiencies.