Photon harvesting with multi wall carbon nanotubes

In this work we show that a sizeable enhancement in the photocurrent over the visible and near ultraviolet energy range can be obtained from multi-wall carbon nanotubes when decorated with Cu-nanoparticles. The result has been obtained both from electrochemical and solid state cells measurements. The photoactive metal nanoparticles do not change the intrinsic ability of multi-wall carbon nanotubes to behave as an efficient low dimensional media for generating e-h carriers. This result further confirms that multi wall carbon nanotubes can be used in photovoltaic nano-devices and solar energy conversion applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.