High performance wire‐array silicon solar cells

Gunawan, Oki; Wang, K.; Fallahazad, Babak; Zhang, Y.; Tutuc, Emanuel; Guha, Supratik

doi:10.1002/pip.1027

Cited by 88 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The incorporation of nanostructures in silicon photovoltaics is of particular importance as these currently make up over 80% of the photovoltaic market [3] due to silicon's low cost, natural abundance, nontoxicity, and compatibility with mature fabrication techniques. Silicon, however absorbs poorly over the peak of the solar spectrum, requiring the use of over 100 μm thick Si wafers for sufficient absorption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Silicon, however absorbs poorly over the peak of the solar spectrum, requiring the use of over 100 μm thick Si wafers for sufficient absorption. This large thickness necessitates that the silicon be of a high chemical purity, for efficient carrier diffusion across the wafer [2], and such thick, high quality wafers currently account for almost half the cost of solar modules [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modal analysis of enhanced absorption in silicon nanowire arrays

et al. 2011

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Abstract:We analyze the absorption of solar radiation by silicon nanowire arrays, which are being considered for photovoltaic applications. These structures have been shown to have enhanced absorption compared with thin films, however the mechanism responsible for this is not understood. Using a new, semi-analytic model, we show that the enhanced absorption can be attributed to a few modes of the array, which couple well to incident light, overlap well with the nanowires, and exhibit strong Fabry-Pérot resonances. For some wavelengths the absorption is further enhanced by slow light effects. We study the evolution of these modes with wavelength to explain the various features of the absorption spectra, focusing first on a dilute array at normal incidence, before generalizing to a dense array and off-normal angles of incidence. The understanding developed will allow for optimization of simple SiNW arrays, as well as the development of more advanced designs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modal analysis of enhanced absorption in silicon nanowire arrays

et al. 2011

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“…In addition to factors such as material and manufacturing costs [1][2][3], novelty of non-planar solar cell architectures is grounded in the idea that some non-planar devices decouple optical and electronic path lengths [4] and, therefore, offer opportunities to alter the competing roles of charge carrier collection and recombination within a device, which limit efficiency for planar cells with low charge carrier mobility and lifetime. In recent years, a number of unconventional, non-planar solar cell designs have been proposed, and some experimentally fabricated [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], in efforts to increase energy conversion efficiencies. To date, however, the planar solar cell architecture still holds all efficiency records over its non-planar counterparts [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analytical device-physics framework for non-planar solar cells

Kirkpatrick

Burns

Naughton

2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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Non-planar solar-cell devices have been promoted as a means to enhance current collection in absorber materials with charge-transport limitations. This work presents an analytical framework for assessing the ultimate performance of non-planar solar-cells based on materials and geometry. Herein, the physics of the p-n junction is analyzed for low-injection conditions, when the junction can be considered spatially separable into quasi-neutral and space-charge regions. For the conventional planar solar cell architecture, previously established one-dimensional expressions governing charge carrier transport are recovered from the framework established herein. Space-charge region recombination statistics are compared for planar and non-planar geometries, showing variations in recombination current produced from the space-charge region. In addition, planar and non-planar solar cell performance are simulated, based on a semi-empirical expression for short-circuit current, detailing variations in charge carrier transport and efficiency as a function of geometry, thereby yielding insights into design criteria for solar cell architectures. For the conditions considered here, the expressions for generation rate and total current are shown to universally govern any solar cell geometry, while recombination within the spacecharge region is shown to be directly dependent on the geometrical orientation of the p-n junction.

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“…Controlled surface doping of semiconductor structures with macroscopic areas as well as at the nanoscale is important for advanced semiconductor device architectures such as FinFet 2,3 , as well as for nanostructure based devices such as nanowire-based sensors and photovoltaics [4][5][6][7] . We recently introduced monolayer contact doping (MLCD) for repeatable, uniform surface doping of silicon interfaces with macroscopic and nanometric dimensions with control over dopant dose and diffusion profile 1 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monolayer Contact Doping of Silicon Surfaces and Nanowires Using Organophosphorus Compounds

Hazut

Agarwala

Subramani

et al. 2013

JoVE

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Monolayer Contact Doping (MLCD) is a simple method for doping of surfaces and nanostructures 1 . MLCD results in the formation of highly controlled, ultra shallow and sharp doping profiles at the nanometer scale. In MLCD process the dopant source is a monolayer containing dopant atoms.In this article a detailed procedure for surface doping of silicon substrate as well as silicon nanowires is demonstrated. Phosphorus dopant source was formed using tetraethyl methylenediphosphonate monolayer on a silicon substrate. This monolayer containing substrate was brought to contact with a pristine intrinsic silicon target substrate and annealed while in contact. Sheet resistance of the target substrate was measured using 4 point probe. Intrinsic silicon nanowires were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process using a vapor-liquidsolid (VLS) mechanism; gold nanoparticles were used as catalyst for nanowire growth. The nanowires were suspended in ethanol by mild sonication. This suspension was used to dropcast the nanowires on silicon substrate with a silicon nitride dielectric top layer. These nanowires were doped with phosphorus in similar manner as used for the intrinsic silicon wafer. Standard photolithography process was used to fabricate metal electrodes for the formation of nanowire based field effect transistor (NW-FET). The electrical properties of a representative nanowire device were measured by a semiconductor device analyzer and a probe station. Video LinkThe video component of this article can be found at

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High performance wire‐array silicon solar cells

Cited by 88 publications

References 14 publications

Modal analysis of enhanced absorption in silicon nanowire arrays

Modal analysis of enhanced absorption in silicon nanowire arrays

Analytical device-physics framework for non-planar solar cells

Monolayer Contact Doping of Silicon Surfaces and Nanowires Using Organophosphorus Compounds

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