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Single coaxial silicon nanowire photovoltaic cell

By: Aparajita Mallick

Nano wire solar cells


Solar cells are attractive candidates for
clean and renewable power With miniaturization, they might serve as integrated power sources for nanoelectronic systems. In the earlier experiments, nanowires were mostly used simply as a conducting channel for enhancing the electron transport

It has been shown that silicon nanowires


have the potential to give an improved optical absorption. Thus silicon nanowires can be used as photovoltaic devices where photogeneration occurs. Even if the nanowire solar cell never replace large solar cells, they could be useful in experimental nanometer-scale devices, which today lack a convenient power source.

Working Principle
The following processes take place in a
general photovoltaic cell:
Presence of a built in electric field. On exposure to light, electron-hole pair is
generated. The electron-hole thus move in opposite direction under the influence of build-in electric field. If both the ends are connected, a current flows in the outer circuit.

Photovoltaic device requires a built-in


electric field for electron-hole charge separation. A built in electric field can be achieved by either of the following ways:
a p-n junction must be present a Schottky barrier must be present

Here a coaxial p-i-n silicon nanowire


configuration is being used.

Advantages of the coaxial p-i-n configuration


Charge separation can occur efficiently
throughout the nanowire lengths Charge separation occurs in the radial direction, Dimension in radial direction is smaller than the minority carrier diffusion length Bulk recombination decreases significantly Thus, Improves the efficiency.

Experimental Background:
Fabrication Features Demonstrated Application

The core p-type nanowire is synthesized by


means of a vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) method. It is coated by a chemical vapour deposition of a layer of pure silicon The outer n type layer is formed by chemical vapour deposition, phosphine is used as n dopant.

Fabrication

To get current out of the solar cell,


researchers first etched away its outer two layers at one end. Then they formed metal contacts at both ends.

Features of the fabricated solar cell


The silicon used is lesser pure as compared the
quality usually used for solar cell. Due to lesser pure form of silicon, cost is reduced. The efficiency is 3.4%. Over a year of fabrication and use, the quality of the solar cell has not been degraded. It is proposed that the efficiency can be further improved up to 20-25%

Demonstrated Application
A silicon nanowire pH sensor was
powered by a single coaxial silicon nanowire photovoltaic device. The operation of AND logic gates fabricated from nanowires and powered by two coaxial silicon nanowires photovoltaic devices.

Modeling of coaxial nanowire solar cell



Diameter of the core p-type is 100 nm. Thickness of the i-layer is 80nm Thickness of n layer is 100 nm Total diameter is 360 nm. Length of the nanowire, is set to one micron. The doping of p-type and n-type are set to 7.4X1016.

Simulation
The device has been simulated using
Silvaco ATLAS, a 2D/3D semiconductor device simulator. The following steps were taken for simulation:
DeckBuild run-time environment received the input
files. Within the input files, Silvaco Atlas was called to execute the code. TonyPlot was used to view the output of the simulation.

Minor Project
Studying various characteristics of a
conventional solar cell using simulation tool Formulating a program to define the structure of a coaxial solar of mentioned dimensions and to get its potential profile

Characteristics studied:
Photogeneration Rate Dark Current Light Current Spectral Response

I-V characteristics

Spectral response

Coaxial Si nanowire solar cell


Structure

Potential profile of the solar cell under zero bias


The profile shows
potential gradient in the radial direction Due to potential gradient, the electron-hole pair move in opposite direction to generate current in the outer circuit.

Anode->top left Cathode is at the right


bottom. left: p-type, centre: i-layer, right: n-type.

THANK YOU

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