Polymer Solar Cells and Graphene Transistors Are On a Roll

摘要

Paper #1, on high-efficiency solar cells, having reached the mandatory two-year retirement age for Hot Papers, is making its final appearance in the Physics Top Ten. During the latest bimonthly period, March-April 2011, it notched up 116 citations. The organic solar cell described in #1 is a huge advance on the inorganic silicon cell. That's because the conducting polymers at the heart of the device are low-cost and easy to fabricate using roll-to-roll technology. The paper is highly cited because engineers and applied physicists are now focused on developing high-speed processing methods that are scalable, and solar cells with better functionality.