Performance Enhancement of Ultra-Thin Nanowire Array Solar Cells by Bottom Reflectivity Engineering

Nanomaterials

Nickolay Sibirev¹  Haoran Liu²  Xiaomin Ren²  Xia Zhang²  Xin Yan² 

[1] ITMO University, St. Petersburg 197101, Russia;State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China;

关键词: nanowire;    solar cell;    bottom reflectivity;    conversion efficiency;   

DOI  :  10.3390/nano10020184

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

A bottom-reflectivity-enhanced ultra-thin nanowire array solar cell is proposed and studied by 3D optoelectronic simulations. By inserting a small-index MgF₂ layer between the polymer and substrate, the absorption is significantly improved over a broad wavelength range due to the strong reabsorption of light reflected at the polymer/MgF₂ interface. With a 5 nm-thick MgF₂ layer, the GaAs nanowire array solar cell with a height of 0.4−1 μm yields a remarkable conversion efficiency ranging from 14% to 15.6%, significantly higher than conventional structures with a much larger height. Moreover, by inserting the MgF₂ layer between the substrate and a part of the nanowire, in addition to between the substrate and polymer, the absorption of substrate right below the nanowire is further suppressed, leading to an optimal efficiency of 15.9%, 18%, and 5.4% for 1 μm-high GaAs, InP, and Si nanowire solar cells, respectively. This work provides a simple and universal way to achieve low-cost high-performance nanoscale solar cells.

【 授权许可】

Unknown