An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells
Semiconductor nanowires(NWs) with subwavelength scale diameters have demonstrated superior light trapping features, which unravel a new pathway for low cost and high efficiency future generation solar cells. Unlike other published work, a fully analytic design is for the first time proposed for opti...
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sg-ntu-dr.10356-896042020-03-07T14:02:39Z An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells Wu, Dan Tang, Xiaohong Wang, Kai Li, Xianqiang School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Centre for OptoElectronics and Biophotonics Nanowires Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Technology Semiconductor nanowires(NWs) with subwavelength scale diameters have demonstrated superior light trapping features, which unravel a new pathway for low cost and high efficiency future generation solar cells. Unlike other published work, a fully analytic design is for the first time proposed for optimal geometrical parameters of vertically-aligned GaAs NW arrays for maximal energy harvesting. Using photocurrent density as the light absorbing evaluation standard, 2 μm length NW arrays whose multiple diameters and periodicity are quantitatively identified achieving the maximal value of 29.88 mA/cm2 under solar illumination. It also turns out that our method has wide suitability for single, double and four different diameters of NW arrays for highest photon energy harvesting. To validate this analytical method, intensive numerical three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations of the NWs’ light harvesting are also carried out. Compared with the simulation results, the predicted maximal photocurrent densities lie within 1.5% tolerance for all cases. Along with the high accuracy, through directly disclosing the exact geometrical dimensions of NW arrays, this method provides an effective and efficient route for high performance photovoltaic design. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version 2018-06-07T07:16:37Z 2019-12-06T17:29:22Z 2018-06-07T07:16:37Z 2019-12-06T17:29:22Z 2017 Journal Article Wu, D., Tang, X., Wang, K., & Li, X. (2017). An Analytic Approach for Optimal Geometrical Design of GaAs Nanowires for Maximal Light Harvesting in Photovoltaic Cells. Scientific Reports, 7, 46504-. 2045-2322 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89604 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44990 10.1038/srep46504 en Scientific Reports © 2017 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 8 p. application/pdf |
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Nanowires Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Technology Wu, Dan Tang, Xiaohong Wang, Kai Li, Xianqiang An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
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Semiconductor nanowires(NWs) with subwavelength scale diameters have demonstrated superior light trapping features, which unravel a new pathway for low cost and high efficiency future generation solar cells. Unlike other published work, a fully analytic design is for the first time proposed for optimal geometrical parameters of vertically-aligned GaAs NW arrays for maximal energy harvesting. Using photocurrent density as the light absorbing evaluation standard, 2 μm length NW arrays whose multiple diameters and periodicity are quantitatively identified achieving the maximal value of 29.88 mA/cm2 under solar illumination. It also turns out that our method has wide suitability for single, double and four different diameters of NW arrays for highest photon energy harvesting. To validate this analytical method, intensive numerical three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations of the NWs’ light harvesting are also carried out. Compared with the simulation results, the predicted maximal photocurrent densities lie within 1.5% tolerance for all cases. Along with the high accuracy, through directly disclosing the exact geometrical dimensions of NW arrays, this method provides an effective and efficient route for high performance photovoltaic design. |
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School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering |
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School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Wu, Dan Tang, Xiaohong Wang, Kai Li, Xianqiang |
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Article |
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Wu, Dan Tang, Xiaohong Wang, Kai Li, Xianqiang |
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Wu, Dan |
title |
An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
title_short |
An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
title_full |
An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
title_fullStr |
An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
title_full_unstemmed |
An analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of GaAs nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
title_sort |
analytic approach for optimal geometrical design of gaas nanowires for maximal light harvesting in photovoltaic cells |
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2018 |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89604 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44990 |
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1681048620252528640 |