? Scientists had already shown that by placing two metal cables at a short distance on the graphene and radiating light on this structure, electrical energy was generated. It was a simple device that worked like an elementary photovoltaic cell ?, explain the authors of the work. The biggest obstacle they encountered when putting this mechanism into practice was its low efficiency. Namely,graphene is the thinnest material in the world but absorbs little light, approximately 3%, and lets the rest pass through it, so it cannot be used to generate electricity.
Russian Nobel laureates Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester (UK) have solved the problem bycombination of graphene with tiny metal structures placed in a special way on this material, according to SINC. “Combining it with these metallic nanostructures, graphene was able to harness up to twenty times more light without sacrificing its speed at all,” says the research.
The most important thing about this discovery is that its practical application would imply aincredible communication speed on internet cables. Thanks to the unique nature of graphene’s electrons and their high mobility, the communication speed that could be achieved with this material could be tens and potentially hundreds of times higher than that of today’s fastest cables.
For Andrea Ferrari, professor in the engineering department of the University of Cambridge and director of the collaborating team at this university, the results demonstrate the great potential of graphene in the fields of photonics and optical electronics, since they can be applied to a large variety of useful devices, such as solar cells or photodetectors.
