Absorption enhancement of GaInP nanowires by tailoring transparent shell thicknesses and its application in III-V nanowire/Si film two-junction solar cells

A non-absorbing transparent shell is proposed to be coated on the outer surface of the core photoactive GaInP nanowire array (NWA) of the III-V nanowire (NW)/Si film two-junction solar cell. Interestingly, the diluted (at the filling ratio of 0.25) GaInP NWA with core / transparent shell structure can absorb more light than that in bare denser (at the filling ratio of 0.5) NWA. This allows for less source material consumption during the fabrication of III-V NWA/Si film two-junction cell. Meanwhile, the condition of current matching between the top III-V NWA and Si film sub cell can be easily fulfilled by tailoring the coating thickness of the transparent coating. Beyond the advantages on light absorption, the surface passivation effects introduced by the addition of some transparent dielectric coatings can reduce the surface recombination rate at the top NWA sub cell surface. This facilitates the effective extraction of photo-generated carriers and enhances output stability of the top NWA sub cell. From electrical simulation, a power conversion efficiency of 29.9% can be obtained at the optimized coating geometry. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America