Flexible solar cells based on carbon nanomaterials

Flexible photovoltaic devices have attracted much attention because of the promising applications in portable or wearable electronics, power-generated textiles, building-integrated photovoltaic systems, electric automobiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and space robots. And due to the advantages of abundance, long-term stability, good transparency, high conductivity and mechanical flexibility, carbon nanomaterials have been widely used for realizing the flexibility and high performance of solar cells. In this review, the photovoltaic devices including dye-sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells and perovskite solar cells, which can be made flexible, are first introduced briefly. The necessity for carbon nanomaterials including fullerene, carbon nanotube and graphene is then summarized for the photovoltaic applications. The main efforts are next made to discuss the recent advances of the carbon nanomaterials for flexible solar cells with an emphasis on the material synthesis and structure design. The remaining challenges and future directions are finally concluded to guide the following studies on the development of carbon nanomaterials for flexible solar cells. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.