Glycine self-assembled on graphene enhances the solar absorbance performance

Despite its high solar absorbance and surface coating abilities, pristine graphene as a semimetal is not promising for photovoltaic applications. In this study, we predict that Glycine (Gly), an amino acid, which is normally bound to pristine graphene by a weak van der Waals attraction, can form an organic coating durable to ambient condition when adsorbed on vacancy patterned graphene surface. Moreover, adsorbed Gly coating induces metal-insulator transition and concomitantly increases the solar absorbance of pristine graphene more than three times. This way, graphene attain critical functionalities to be used in solar energy and photovoltaic applications. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.