Author : Rupesh Manak, Vishnu Prabhakar and Jasmeen Saini

Solar energy conversion have been used since beginning of lifecycle and is necessary vital for all living organism. A major technological need for harnessing solar energy is the transition from non-renewable fossil-fuel based energy economy to sustainable (renewable) energy one. Today’s solar power technologies has little chance to compete with fossil fuels or large electrical grids and are too expensive for manufacturing large scale generation of electricity. Nanotechnology has already shown huge breakthroughs in solar energy conversion and provides methods for fabrication and use of structures and systems with size corresponding to the wavelength of visible light. The fascinating optical properties of nanoengineered materials made them suitable for future solar material and might be able to increase the efficiency of solar cells by facilitating photon absorption, multiple exciton generation, and electron collection, but the most promising application of nanotechnology is the reduction in manufacturing cost. Also utilizing nanotechnology in inexpensive solar cell would help to preserve the environment. This review is seeking to introduce current solar cell technologies based on nanotechnology.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, Multiple exciton generation, Dye-sensitized solar cell, Quantum Dots, CNTs.

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.3,No.5(Dec- 2013)