Abstract
Nanowires and nanoholes have been widely employed in recent years for photovoltaic applications due to their promising potentials in efficient light-trapping and photoconversion in low cost. Extensive experimental, theoretical, and numerical efforts have been paid in order to promote these new kinds of solar cells for realistic applications. However, the device performance reported is still far from expectation, which is strongly constrained by the strong surface carrier recombination due to the dramatically increased junction facet area. Therefore, the comprehensive studies for nanowire and nanohole solar cells are strongly desired.
In the design of nanostructured solar cells, the detailed electrical mechanisms have seldom been included due to the numerical challenge in simulating both optical absorption and carrier transport behaviors in an extensive way, i.e., to mimic the microscopic processes of photons, electrons, and holes in both frequency and spatial domains, leading to a substantial discrepancy between prediction and reality. We present a complete optoelectronic simulation for nanowire and nanohole solar cells through addressing electromagnetic and carrier-transport response in a coupled finite-element method. The important mechanisms in optical and electrical domains, including optical resonance, carrier diffusion, carrier drift, carrier bulk/surface recombination, etc., have been included comprehensively into the simulation. For the special nanowire and nanohole solar cells with large surface area, the effects of surface recombination are specifically quantified and compared for cells under various radial and axial doping profiles.
© 2015 Optical Society of America
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