Nanocrystal solar cells or quantum dot solar cells, are solar cells based on a silicon substrate with a coating of nanocrystals.

While previous methods of quantum dot creation relied on expensive molecular beam epitaxy processes, fabrication using colloidal synthesis allows for a more cost-effective manufacture. A thin film of nanocrystals is obtained by a process known as “spin-coating”. This involves placing an amount of the quantum dot solution onto a flat substrate, which is then rotated very quickly. The solution spreads out uniformly, and the substrate is spun until the required thickness is achieved.

Quantum dot based photovoltaic cells based around dye-sensitised colloidal TiO2 films were investigated in 1991 and were found to exhibit promising efficiency of converting incident light energy to electrical energy, and were found to be incredibly encouraging due to the low cost of materials in the search for more commercially viable/affordable renewable energy sources. A single-nanocrystal (channel) architecture in which an array of single particles between the electrodes, each separated by ~1 exciton diffusion length, was proposed to improve the device efficiency and research on this type of solar cell is being conducted by groups at Stanford, Berkeley and the University of Tokyo.

Although research is still in its infancy and is ongoing, in the future quantum dot based photovoltaics may offer advantages such as mechanical flexibility (quantum dot-polymer composite photovoltaics) as well as low cost, clean power generation and an efficiency of 65%.

It is also argued that many measurements conducted for measuring the efficiency of the nanocrystal solar cell are incorrect. Also, the nanocrystal solar cells are not suitable for large scale manufacturing.

Recent research in experimenting with lead selenide (PbSe) semiconductor, as well as with cadmium telluride (CdTe), which has already been well established in the production of "classic" solar cells. Other materials are being researched as well.