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Light-Harvesting Complexes Do It Themselves
from Science News
A new technique may one day lead to solar cells that bring themselves together like a molecular flash mob and repair damage they sustain during the rough business of turning light into electricity. The research lays the groundwork for cheap, self-repairing solar cells with an indefinite lifetime, a team reports September 5 in Nature Chemistry.
"It's a manmade version of what nature does," says nanocomposite expert Jaime Grunlan of Texas A&M University in College Station. "This really looks like ground-breaking seminal work; I've never seen anything remotely like it."
The sun's rays can be brutal, even for a leaf that's harvesting them. When photosynthesis is going full blast, a leaf is constantly building new photosynthetic reaction centers to replace those damaged by harsh oxygen species and other destructive molecules generated by intense ultraviolet light.
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