VATIS UPDATE Article

An international research group led by the Ikerbasque researcher Luis Hueso (leader of CIC nanoGUNE’s Nanodevices Group), Spain, and which has had the participation of the China Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute, Germany, and nanoGUNE itself, has developed a photovoltaic cell in which magnetic materials such as electrodes are used for the first time to provide current.

“The device is simply a photovoltaic cell manufactured from an organic material (fullerene C60) and fitted with cobalt and nickel magnetic electrodes,” said Hueso. Fullerene C60, known as Buckyball, is a ball-shaped molecule comprising 60 carbon atoms. What is more, the magnetic electrodes produce current with an added property known as spin. The results of the research have been published in the scientific journal Science.

The combination of both is no coincidence since fullerene is known to be a photovoltaic material that could allow the spin direction to be controlled. The use and control of this properly allows the efficiency of the solar cell to be increased, thus making it capable of generating a bigger current. The researchers have confirmed that the use of electrodes of this type increases the photovoltaic efficiency of the device by 14%.