Enhanced Photoelectrical Response of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Single-Nanowire Solar Cells by Front-Opening Crescent Design

Zhenhai Yang; Guoyang Cao; Aixue Shang; Dang Yuan Lei; Cheng Zhang; Pingqi Gao; Jichun Ye; Xiaofeng Li

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1447-0

Enhanced Photoelectrical Response of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Single-Nanowire Solar Cells by Front-Opening Crescent Design

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2016 Dec;11(1):233. doi: 10.1186/s11671-016-1447-0. Epub 2016 Apr 29.

Authors

Zhenhai Yang^{1

2}, Guoyang Cao^{1

3}, Aixue Shang^{1

3}, Dang Yuan Lei⁴, Cheng Zhang^{1

3}, Pingqi Gao⁵, Jichun Ye², Xiaofeng Li^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy & Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China.
² Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China.
³ Key Lab of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province and Key Lab of Modern Optical Technologies of Education Ministry of China, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China.
⁴ Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
⁵ Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China. [email protected].
⁶ College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy & Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China. [email protected].
⁷ Key Lab of Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technologies of Jiangsu Province and Key Lab of Modern Optical Technologies of Education Ministry of China, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China. [email protected].

Abstract

We report an approach for substantially enhancing the light-trapping and photoconversion efficiency of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) single-nanowire solar cells (SNSCs) by engineering the cross section of the nanowire from circular into a front-opening crescent shape. The proposed SNSCs show a broadband and highly tunable optical absorption compared to the conventional circular counterparts under both transverse electric and transverse magnetic incidences, enabling an enhancement ratio of over 40 % in both the photocurrent density and the photoconversion efficiency in a-Si:H SNSCs with a diameter of 200 nm. We further show that the superior performance can be well maintained under a wide range of incident angle and is robust to the blunt crescent edges.

Keywords: Coupled optoelectronic simulation; Crescent; Light-trapping; Single-nanowire solar cells.