Three dimensional photovoltaic fibers for wearable energy harvesting and conversion

As the development of smart electronics, self-powered sources have been attracting increasing attention. This review summarizes research progress of photovoltaic fibers and their integrated power sources with multi-stage energy conversion. Recent development of three dimensional photovoltaic fibers is glanced with special attention to structure design and materials of typical photovoltaic types (inorganic, organic, dye/quantum dot sensitized and perovskite solar cells). The application of carbon materials in fiber energy is focused as it is a hot topic recently. The hybrid energy systems based on fiber solar cells and fiber supercapacitors, fiber batteries and fiber nanogenerators are summarized together with hybrid energy textiles. This review provides a macroscopic view of novel energy fibers and will attract research interest in flexible/wearable fiber electronics and energy textiles. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press.