The new material is expected to make organic solar cells more efficient and more widely used

Researchers in nanomaterials have proposed a more flexible approach to organic solar cells and increased their efficiency by more than 10%.

A research team at New York University's Tandon Institute of Engineering believes the development could make solar more useful in a variety of applications, such as becoming part of an electric car, turning it into wearable electronics or stitching into a backpack to charge mobile handsets.

The researchers said that most organic solar cells use carbon-spherical molecules called fullerenes, though they are expensive and absorb only a limited amount of light.

By using non-fullerenes and a range of other materials, solar cells absorb as much light as possible.

However, the researchers said it was hard to do before because it was difficult to work together on different levels of batteries.

The researchers found that using a molecule called a squarylium derivative as a crystallizer enhanced the absorption of the layers and maximized the potential of non-fullerene materials.

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