| In the area of solar cell investigations, a common scenario involves the creation of electron hole pairs inside a semiconductor via photons from the sun. To what extend a semiconductor is needed as opposed to any material with a gap? For instance, it is known that polymers also behave similarly to semiconductors in these regards, but with different efficiency and cost. In this manuscript, the possibility of using Mott insulator for solar cells is explored. A possible concern is the recombination of the electron hole pair via the creation of spin excitations. In our study, we show that using quasi one-dimensional Hubbard insulators this problem is avoided due to the special properties of this dimensionality. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 166403 (2008). |