Researchers from the University of Southern California is using Graphene as a transparent flexible conductive layer for organic solar cells (OPVs). OPVs are considered as a cheap way to make solar cells, because they are easy to make, they weight very little and can be flexible. The USC team has produced graphene/polymer sheets ranging in sizes up to 150 square centimeters that in turn can be used to create dense arrays of flexible OPV cells.
Graphene marks a major advance over another OPV design, one based on Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) in at least one crucial area: the ITO cells fails at a very small angle of bending, while the graphene based cells remained operational and sustained repeated bending with more than twice the stress angle of the ITO solar cells.