Experimental demonstration of a tapered silicon core–shell nanowire solar cell enhanced by a nickel silicide contact

Abstract

A wholly passivated silicon core–shell nanowire solar cell incorporating a nickel silicide (NiSi) contact shows reduced series resistance. The configuration’s highly ordered vertical nanowire array is produced by the top-down method on a silicon solar-cell surface. The prepared samples demonstrate reflectance of ∼65 % to 7%. The sample without the NiSi contact has a high short-circuit current density of 31.0 mA / cm2. The cells with ∼5 nm NiSi show an improved fill factor of 70%, contributing to a high power-conversion efficiency of 10.8%.