A comparison of light-harvesting performance of silicon nanocones and nanowires for radial-junction solar cells.

Yingfeng Li,Ruike Li,Dandan Song,Pengfei Fu,Chao Shen,Yan Zhao,Meicheng Li

doi:10.1038/srep11532

Abstract

Silicon nanorod based radial-junction solar cells are competitive alternatives to traditional planar silicon solar cells. In various silicon nanorods, nanocone is always considered to be better than nanowire in light-absorption. Nevertheless, we find that this notion isn’t absolutely correct. Silicon nanocone is indeed significantly superior over nanowire in light-concentration due to its continuous diameters, and thus resonant wavelengths excited. However, the concentrated light can’t be effectively absorbed and converted to photogenerated carriers, since its propagation path in silicon nanocone is shorter than that in nanowire. The results provide critical clues for the design of silicon nanorod based radial-junction solar cells.

Highlights

Silicon nanorod based radial-junction solar cells are competitive alternatives to traditional planar silicon solar cells
Silicon nanorod RJ solar cells are considered as low-cost alternatives to the traditional planar silicon solar cells[10]
In the reported silicon nanorod RJ solar cells, the ones based on silicon nanocone (SiNC) always perform better than those based on silicon nanowire (SiNW)

Summary

Introduction

Silicon nanorod based radial-junction solar cells are competitive alternatives to traditional planar silicon solar cells. In the reported silicon nanorod RJ solar cells, the ones based on silicon nanocone (SiNC) always perform better than those based on silicon nanowire (SiNW). Through comparing the light-concentration and light-absorption abilities of them under the same surface coverage rate, it has been demonstrated that SiNC shows no advantage over SiNW in light-absorption for RJ solar cells.

Results

Conclusion