Characterization of a Ga-Assisted GaAs Nanowire Array Solar Cell on Si Substrate

Boulanger, Jonathan; Chia, A. C. E.; Wood, B.; Yazdi, Sadegh; Kasama, Takeshi; Aagesen, Martin; LaPierre, Ray

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2016.2537547

Cited by 44 publications

(79 citation statements)

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“…It also needs to be mentioned that the solar cells with good efficiencies are achieved with axial p-i-n junctions. The efficiency of those with radial p-i-n junctions is still lower than 7.5% [95,96,114,[120][121][122][123][124][125][126]. This could be because it is relatively difficult to fabricate the contact on a radial junction.…”

Section: Single-junction Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To reduce the cost, developing Si-based solar cells is critical. However, most of them are low in efficiency [114][115][116][117][118][119]. It also needs to be mentioned that the solar cells with good efficiencies are achieved with axial p-i-n junctions.…”

Section: Single-junction Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, more effort will be required to systematically study the optimization of p-i-n junctions. Fiordaliso et al and Boulanger et al demonstrated a useful technology to characterize the quality of NW p-i-n junctions [114,217]. By using off-axis electron holography, the electrostatic potentials across the p-n junction can be mapped out, providing direct information on the built-in potential.…”

Section: Challenges In Making Nw Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanowires for High-Efficiency, Low-Cost Solar Photovoltaics

Zhang

Liu

2019

Crystals

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Solar energy is abundant, clean, and renewable, making it an ideal energy source. Solar cells are a good option to harvest this energy. However, it is difficult to balance the cost and efficiency of traditional thin-film solar cells, whereas nanowires (NW) are far superior in making high-efficiency low-cost solar cells. Therefore, the NW solar cell has attracted great attention in recent years and is developing rapidly. Here, we review the great advantages, recent breakthroughs, novel designs, and remaining challenges of NW solar cells. Special attention is given to (but not limited to) the popular semiconductor NWs for solar cells, in particular, Si, GaAs(P), and InP.

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Section: Single-junction Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Single-junction Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges In Making Nw Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nanowires for High-Efficiency, Low-Cost Solar Photovoltaics

Zhang

Liu

2019

Crystals

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“…Nanostructured solar cells promise a combination of high efficiency and low cost 179 , in particular when novel growth methods such as aerotaxy [180][181][182] would prove to yield high performance. We like to look at a nanowire solar cell as typical a 2µm thick film on a silicon 59,[183][184][185][186][187] or e.g. a graphene 188,189 substrate with a nanowire filling fraction 14,69 between 10% and 20%.…”

Section: Economics Of Nanowire Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamentals of the nanowire solar cell: Optimization of the open circuit voltage

Haverkort

Garnett

Bakkers

2018

Applied Physics Reviews

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Present day nanowire solar cells have reached an efficiency of 17.8%. Nanophotonic engineering by nanowire tapering allows high solar light absorption. In combination with sufficiently high carrier selectivity at the contacts, the short-circuit current (Jsc) has presently reached 29.3 mA/cm 2 , reasonable close to the 34.6 mA/cm 2 theoretical limit for InP. Although further optimization of the current is important, an equally challenging condition to approach the Shockley Queisser (S-Q) limit is to increase the open-circuit voltage (Voc) towards the radiative limit. The key requirement to reach the radiative limit is to increase the external radiative efficiency at open-circuit conditions towards unity. It is the main purpose of this review to highlight recent progress in nanophotonic engineering to further enhance the open circuit voltage of a nanowire solar cell. In addition to material optimization for increasing the internal photoluminescence efficiency, the light extraction efficiency is a major design criterium for enhancing the external radiative efficiency and thus the Voc. Since the semiconductor substrate is a sink for internally generated photoluminescence, it is equally important to eliminate the loss of emitted light into the substrate. Even at the S-Q limit, the Voc is still substantially decreased by a photon entropy loss due to the conversion of a parallel beam of photons from the sun into an isotropic emission pattern, in which each individual photon is emitted into a random direction. The 46.7% ultimate solar cell limit for direct solar irradiation can only be approached, once the cell is capable to focus all emitted photoluminescence back to the sun. We will show that nanophotonic engineering provides a pathway to approach the ultimate limit.

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“…Among all the nanostructured solar cells, one-dimensional (1D) NW-based cells have been widely adopted due to their versatility, stability, the reduced minority-carrier lifetime, and optical reflectivity, in addition to their compatibility with current Si-based microelectronics [31,[59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70]. With high PCE and extraordinary radiation hardness, GaAs NW is one of the most important nanostructures and has been long concerned.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

GaAs Nanowires Grown by Catalyst Epitaxy for High Performance Photovoltaics

et al. 2018

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Photovoltaics (PVs) based on nanostructured III/V semiconductors can potentially reduce the material usage and increase the light-to-electricity conversion efficiency, which are anticipated to make a significant impact on the next-generation solar cells. In particular, GaAs nanowire (NW) is one of the most promising III/V nanomaterials for PVs due to its ideal bandgap and excellent light absorption efficiency. In order to achieve large-scale practical PV applications, further controllability in the NW growth and device fabrication is still needed for the efficiency improvement. This article reviews the recent development in GaAs NW-based PVs with an emphasis on cost-effectively synthesis of GaAs NWs, device design and corresponding performance measurement. We first discuss the available manipulated growth methods of GaAs NWs, such as the catalytic vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) and vapor-solid-solid (VSS) epitaxial growth, followed by the catalyst-controlled engineering process, and typical crystal structure and orientation of resulted NWs. The structure-property relationships are also discussed for achieving the optimal PV performance. At the same time, important device issues are as well summarized, including the light absorption, tunnel junctions and contact configuration. Towards the end, we survey the reported performance data and make some remarks on the challenges for current nanostructured PVs. These results not only lay the ground to considerably achieve the higher efficiencies in GaAs NW-based PVs but also open up great opportunities for the future low-cost smart solar energy harvesting devices.

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Characterization of a Ga-Assisted GaAs Nanowire Array Solar Cell on Si Substrate

Cited by 44 publications

References 50 publications

Nanowires for High-Efficiency, Low-Cost Solar Photovoltaics

Nanowires for High-Efficiency, Low-Cost Solar Photovoltaics

Fundamentals of the nanowire solar cell: Optimization of the open circuit voltage

GaAs Nanowires Grown by Catalyst Epitaxy for High Performance Photovoltaics

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