Tandem Solar Cells Using GaAs Nanowires on Si: Design, Fabrication, and Observation of Voltage Addition

Yao, Maoqing; Cong, Sen; Arab, Shermin; Huang, Ningfeng; Povinelli, Michelle L.; Cronin, Stephen B.; Dapkus, P. Daniel; Zhou, Chongwu

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b03890

Tandem Solar Cells Using GaAs Nanowires on Si: Design, Fabrication, and Observation of Voltage Addition

Journal Article · Mon Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Nano Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b03890· OSTI ID:1369907

Yao, Maoqing ^[1]; Cong, Sen ^[1]; Arab, Shermin ^[1]; Huang, Ningfeng ^[1]; Povinelli, Michelle L. ^[1]; Cronin, Stephen B. ^[1]; Dapkus, P. Daniel ^[1]; Zhou, Chongwu ^[1]

Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

Multijunction solar cells provide us a viable approach to achieve efficiencies higher than the Shockley–Queisser limit. Due to their unique optical, electrical, and crystallographic features, semiconductor nanowires are good candidates to achieve monolithic integration of solar cell materials that are not lattice-matched. In this work, we report the first realization of nanowire-on-Si tandem cells with the observation of voltage addition of the GaAs nanowire top cell and the Si bottom cell with an open circuit voltage of 0.956 V and an efficiency of 11.4%. Our simulation showed that the current-matching condition plays an important role in the overall efficiency. Furthermore, we characterized GaAs nanowire arrays grown on lattice-mismatched Si substrates and estimated the carrier density using photoluminescence. A low-resistance connecting junction was obtained using n⁺-GaAs/p⁺-Si heterojunction. Lastly, we demonstrated tandem solar cells based on top GaAs nanowire array solar cells grown on bottom planar Si solar cells. The reported nanowire-on-Si tandem cell opens up great opportunities for high-efficiency, low-cost multijunction solar cells.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Energy Nanoscience (CEN)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0001013

OSTI ID:: 1369907

Journal Information:: Nano Letters, Journal Name: Nano Letters Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 15; ISSN 1530-6984

Publisher:: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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14 SOLAR ENERGY
GaAs-nanowire-on-Si
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current matching
doping characterization
heterojunction
voltage addition

Tandem Solar Cells Using GaAs Nanowires on Si: Design, Fabrication, and Observation of Voltage Addition

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