Absorption-Enhanced Ultra-Thin Solar Cells Based on Horizontally Aligned p–i–n Nanowire Arrays

Yuan, Xueguang; Chen, Xiaoyu; Yan, Xin; Wei, Wei; Zhang, Yangan; Zhang, Xia

doi:10.3390/nano10061111

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…The LMRs can be termed as TMml or TEml, where m and l describe the azimuthal mode number and the radial order of the resonances, respectively. For example, the Er profiles of the ENW in Figure 3b (10) and Figure 3d(7) show more characteristics of the TM12 and TE11 modes of the CNW, respectively. Secondly, both NW configurations show much higher Er intensities in the long-than short-wavelength range.…”

Section: The Normalized Electric Field (Er)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More importantly, there are many distinct characteristics of the Er profiles for both NW configures due to the symmetry breaking from the CNW to ENW. Firstly, the Er profiles of the CNW exhibit a large number of exact (for example, TM51 in Figure 3a (8) and TE13 in Figure 3c(9)) and approximate degeneracies (for example, TM51 in Figure 3a (10) and TE13 in Figure 3c(10)). In contrast, the Er profiles of the ENW exhibit different numbers, positions and modes of the resonant peaks between TM and TE light, indicating the higher tunability of light trapping in ENW than CNW.…”

Section: The Normalized Electric Field (Er)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secondly, Results from single NWs can subsequently provide feedback for the design of new functional NWs. Finally, single NWs can assemble to form NW arrays, and results from single NWs can help understand the self-assembled NW-based solar cells [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Light Trapping in Single Elliptical Silicon Nanowires

Liu

Wang

Guo

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Light trapping in single nanowires (NWs) are of vital importance for photovoltaic applications. However, circular NWs (CNWs) can limit its light-trapping ability due to high geometrical symmetry. In this work, we present a detailed study of light trapping in single NWs with an elliptical cross-section (ENWs). We demonstrate that the ENWs exhibit significantly enhanced light trapping compared with the CNWs, which can be ascribed to the symmetry-broken structure that can orthogonalize the direction of light illumination and the leaky mode resonances (LMRs). That is, the elliptical cross-section can simultaneously increase the light path length by increasing the vertical axis and reshape the LMR modes by decreasing the horizontal axis. We found that the light absorption can be engineered via tuning the horizontal and vertical axes, the photocurrent is significantly enhanced by 374.0% (150.3%, 74.1%) or 146.1% (61.0%, 35.3%) in comparison with that of the CNWs with the same diameter as the horizontal axis of 100 (200, 400) nm or the vertical axis of 1000 nm, respectively. This work advances our understanding of how to improve light trapping based on the symmetry breaking from the CNWs to ENWs and provides a rational way for designing high-efficiency single or self-assembled NW photovoltaic devices.

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Section: The Normalized Electric Field (Er)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Normalized Electric Field (Er)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Light Trapping in Single Elliptical Silicon Nanowires

Liu

Wang

Guo

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Single nanowire (NW) solar cells have attracted more and more research interests as nanoelectronic power sources in recent years due to their unique characteristics, such as enhanced light-harvesting capability, efficient carrier collection, ultra-compact volume, large surface area, and convenience of integrating with optoelectronic nanosystems [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Moreover, the design at the single level is of great importance to understand optoelectronic characteristics of the assembled NWs and thus can simplify analysis to obtain the theoretical limits for photovoltaic applications [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. It is well known that light-harvesting ability is one of the most critical factors for photovoltaic applications, which determines the photoelectric conversion efficiency of a solar cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Off-Resonant Absorption Enhancement in Single Nanowires via Graded Dual-Shell Design

Liu¹,

Guo²,

Xing³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Single nanowires (NWs) are of great importance for various optoelectronic applications, especially solar cells serving as powering nanoscale devices. However, weak off-resonant absorption can limit its light-harvesting capability. Here, we propose a single NW coated with the graded-index dual shells (DSNW). We demonstrate that with the proper thickness and refractive index of the inner shell, the DSNW exhibits significantly enhanced light trapping compared with the bare NW (BNW), and the NW only coated with the outer shell (OSNW) and inner shell (ISNW), which can be attributed to the optimal off-resonant absorption mode profiles due to the improved coupling between the reemitted light of the leak mode resonances of the Si core and the nanofocusing light from the dual shells with the graded refractive index. We found that the light absorption can be adjusted via tuning the thickness and refractive index of the inner shell, the photocurrent density is significantly enhanced by 134% (56%, 12%) in comparison with that of the BNW (OSNW, ISNW). This work advances our understanding of how to improve off-resonant absorption by applying graded dual shells and provides a new choice for designing high-efficiency single NW photovoltaic devices.

show abstract

“…Single nanowire (NW) solar cells have attracted more and more research interests as nanoelectronic power sources in recent years due to their unique characteristics, such as enhanced light-harvesting capability, efficient carrier collection, ultra-compact volume, large surface area, and convenience of integrating with optoelectronic nanosystems [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Besides its potential applications as power sources for nanoelectronic devices, single NW solar cell is also helpful to understand the mechanism of the self-assembled NW-based solar cells [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. It is well known that light-harvesting ability is one of the most critical factors for photovoltaic applications, which determines the photoelectric conversion efficiency of a solar cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Off-Resonant Absorption Enhancement in Single Nanowires via Graded Dual-Shell Design

Liu

Guo

Xing

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Single nanowires (NWs) are of great importance for optoelectronic applications, especially solar cells serving as powering nanoscale devices. However, weak off-resonant absorption can limit its light-harvesting capability. Here, we propose a single NW coated with the graded-index dual shells (DSNW). We demonstrate that with appropriate thickness and refractive index of the inner shell, the DSNW exhibits significantly enhanced light trapping compared with the bare NW (BNW), and the NW only coated with the outer shell (OSNW) and the inner shell (ISNW), which can be attributed to the optimal off-resonant absorption mode profiles due to the improved coupling between the reemitted light of the transition modes of the leak mode resonances of the Si core and the nanofocusing light from the dual shells with the graded refractive index. We found that the light absorption can be engineered via tuning the thickness and the refractive index of the inner shell, the photocurrent density is significantly enhanced by 134% (56%, 12%) in comparison with that of the BNW (OSNW, ISNW). This work advances our understanding of how to improve off-resonant absorption by applying graded dual-shell design and provides a new choice for designing high-efficiency single NW photovoltaic devices.

show abstract

Absorption-Enhanced Ultra-Thin Solar Cells Based on Horizontally Aligned p–i–n Nanowire Arrays

Cited by 19 publications

References 30 publications

Light Trapping in Single Elliptical Silicon Nanowires

Light Trapping in Single Elliptical Silicon Nanowires

Off-Resonant Absorption Enhancement in Single Nanowires via Graded Dual-Shell Design

Off-Resonant Absorption Enhancement in Single Nanowires via Graded Dual-Shell Design

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