A Novel Coaxial-Structured Amorphous-Silicon p-i-n Solar Cell With Al-Doped ZnO Nanowires

Abstract

A novel coaxial-structured amorphous-silicon (a-Si) p-i-n solar cell with 1-mu m-long low-temperature hydrothermally synthesized Al-doped-ZnO (AZO) nanowires was demonstrated for the first time. The conversion efficiency. increased from 3.92% to 4.27% when the intrinsic a-Si thickness was increased from 25 to 150 nm and then decreased to 3.66% when the intrinsic layer thickness was further increased to 250 nm. It was attributed to an excessively thick intrinsic a-Si layer that would decrease the internal electrical field and interfere with charge separation. With the optimum intrinsic a-Si thickness of 150 nm, the conversion efficiency increased from 4.27% to 4.73% when the AZO wire length was increased from 1 to 2 mu m. Moreover, the proposed coaxial-structured solar cell exhibited a nearly 46% efficiency enhancement over a conventional a-Si thin-film solar cell

Enhance the light-harvesting capability of the ITO-free inverted small molecule solar cell by ZnO nanorods

“…The absorption of the devices enhances as the length of the ZnO nanorods increases. The appearance of these light trapping features, at wavelengths of visible light from 400 to 800 nm, are due to the improved antireflection effect [19][20][21]. However, the absorption of device almost saturates as the length of ZnO nanorods grows to about 200 nm.…”

Simulation of a novel single junction thin film solar cell

“…The enhancements in the short circuit current density and conversion efficiency can be attributed to the more effectively absorbing sunlight [4]. The open circuit current of the solar cell is dropped with increasing thickness 350 nm to 500 nm because of the reduced electric field [5]. The Fig.…”

Deep blue energy harvest photovoltaic switching by heptazole-based organic Schottky diode circuits

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] Organic and inorganic semiconductors have been used as active components of those energy-harvesting devices in a variety of diode forms, including Schottky diodes, 7-10 p-n diodes [11][12][13][14] and p-i-n diodes, [15][16][17][18] showing outstanding progress in enhancing their power efficiencies. 19,20 This study reports a rather different new application, dynamic PV switching and voltage generation by deep blue photons.…”