All carbon solar cell

Admittedly it is only at the early proof of concept stage, with a paltry 0.1% energy conversion efficiency, but the MIT report into an all carbon solar cell crafted from carbon nanotubes and C60 buckyballs is interesting. The driving force being that around 40 percent of the energy reaching us from the sun lies in the near-infrared region, part of the spectrum that conventional silicon-based solar cells are unable to harness. So perhaps a less efficient device might find applications to harvest at least some of the radiation.