Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are studying highly-efficient systems devised by nature over millions of years in the hope of making better man-made solar collecting systems with higher energy outputs, the MIT News Office wrote.

The researchers are looking into an artificial light-capturing system which is based on a highly effective photosynthetic microorganism called the green sulfur bacteria.

"We don't want to improve the efficiency of solar cells we have now," said postdoc Dorthe M. Eisele. "We want to learn from nature how to build entirely new light-harvesting devices."

The green sulfur bacteria, which depends on photosynthesis to survive, lives deep in the ocean where there's hardly any light available. Yet, they manage to harvest 98 percent of the little light that reaches them to grow and thrive.

Ms. Eisele, who is with the M.I.T.'s Research Laboratory of Electronics, described the artificial system as consisting of a self-assembling system of dye molecules that form perfectly uniform double-walled nanotubes similar in size, shape and function to the natural receptors of green sulfur bacteria.

In order to better understand how the nanotubes harvested light and adapt it for practical applications, the researchers devised an experiment to check whether the two concentric cylinders of the double-walled tubes were working together as an integrated system or separately on their own.

The team devised a way to deactivate one of the two cylinders by oxidizing the wall's molecules. By comparing optical responses from when both cylinders are functioning and when only one way, they found that the cylinders are two separate systems that work together to more efficiently collect light.

The research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences in Berlin, the National Science Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Department of Energy Center for Excitonics, the Army Research Office and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. – EcoSeed Staff