Silicon nanowire array photoelectrochemical solar cells

Abstract

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) arrays prepared by electroless etching show excellent optical antireflectivity over a wide spectral bandwidth from 300to1000nm and surface defect-induced electrical conductivity. Both characteristics make the SiNWs a promising material for photovoltaic cell applications. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) measurements showed the electroless etching SiNWs are remarkably photoactive and effective in enhancing photovoltaic properties including photocurrent and photovoltage. Since electroless etching can enable simple, wafer-scale fabrication of SiNWs without the need of doping. SiNWs array thus prepared show great promise as low-cost and scalable photovoltaic-type PEC materials.

Characterization of silicon nanowires grown on silicon, stainless steel and indium tin oxide substrates

“…The bulk of recent studies on SiNWs are centred on their increasingly small diameters [4][5][6] and their integration into micro/nano electronic [7] or photovoltaic [8] devices.…”

Electrical Transport Features of SiNWs Random Network on Si Support after Covalent Attachment of New Organic Functionalities

“…[1][2][3] SiNWs have been also widely used as building block of the next generation solar cells and high mobility field effect transistors (FETs). [3][4][5][6][7][8] The advantage of integrating single, arrays or networks of SiNWs in solar cells, is the possibility of decoupling the light absorption from the charge transport of the minority carriers whose lateral diffusion is one order of magnitude lower (hundreds of nm) than that observed in bulk Si (> 1 m). [6,9,10] Furthermore the enhanced optical absorption from ultraviolet to near infrared optical range could result in a higher efficiency of the Si NW based device.…”

Photoelectrochemical water splitting and hydrogen generation by a spontaneously formed InGaN nanowall network

“…[1][2][3][4][5] Semiconductor nanostructures have been studied extensively in recent years for PEC cells due to their distinctive properties and promise to offer superior PEC performance. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] The main requirement of the PEC industry is to find semiconductor materials with the capability of efficient and cost effective conversion of sunlight to H 2 by splitting water. [13][14][15] GaInP has been reported as an attractive PEC electrode material but it has unacceptably high corrosion rates and suffers from poor stability.…”