Indium tin oxide and indium phosphide heterojunction nanowire array solar cells

Abstract

Heterojunction solar cells were formed with a position-controlled InP nanowire array sputtered with indium tin oxide (ITO). The ITO not only acted as a transparent electrode but also as forming a photovoltaic junction. The devices exhibited an open-circuit voltage of 0.436 V, short-circuit current of 24.8 mA/cm(2), and fill factor of 0.682, giving a power conversion efficiency of 7.37% under AM1.5G illumination. The internal quantum efficiency of the device was higher than that of the world-record InP cell in the short wavelength range. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Growth of wurtzite GaP in InP/GaP core–shell nanowires by selective-area MOVPE

“…We have grown III-V compound semiconductor nanowires by selective-area metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy (SA-MOVPE) [1,4,[8][9][10][11][22][23][24][25][26]. The crystal structures of InP nanowires can be controlled by adjusting the growth conditions of SA-MOVPE, and pure WZ InP nanowires can be obtained at high growth temperature and low V/III ratio [9,10].…”

“…Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) have attracted considerable interest in recent years because of their potential applications in devices such as field-effect transistors [1,2], light-emitting diodes [3][4][5][6], and solar cells [7,8]. The most-surprising feature of nanowires is that they can be grown with a wurtzite (WZ) crystal structure by appropriately adjusting the growth conditions such as growth temperature, V/III ratio, and doping amount [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], even though they are stable in the zinc blende (ZB) phase of the bulk crystal.…”

Towards high efficiency nanowire solar cells

“…A range of other approaches exists where the nanowire is only one of the parts forming the charge separating junction, such as nanowire-embedded-in-thin-film heterojunctions [28], nanowire-substrate heterojunctions [30,194], nanowire-ITO heterojunctions [195], nanowire-metal Schottky solar cells [196,197], nanowire-polymer hybrid devices [198][199][200][201][202], nanowire-dye sensitized cells [203][204][205] and nanowire-electrolyte photoelectrochemical cells [206,207]. While aspects covered here are relevant also to many of these architectures, a detailed discussion of the specifics of each is beyond the scope of this review.…”

III‐VCompound Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices

“…III-V semiconductor nanowire array based solar cells have been demonstrated using GaAs (21,(146)(147)(148)(149)(150)(151)(152)(153)(154)(155)(156), InP (22,(157)(158)(159)(160)(161), GaN/InGaN (162)(163)(164)(165), InN (166), InAs (167), InGaAs (168), GaAsP (169,170) and GaAs/InGaP (152, 171) material systems. As discussed earlier, GaAs and InP have bandgaps ideal for maximising the photovoltaic conversion efficiencies in single junction solar cells.…”