Surface-passivated GaAsP single-nanowire solar cells exceeding 10% efficiency grown on silicon

TY - JOUR

T1 - Surface-passivated GaAsP single-nanowire solar cells exceeding 10% efficiency grown on silicon

AU - Holm, Jeppe Vilstrup

AU - Jørgensen, Henrik Ingerslev

AU - Krogstrup, Peter

AU - Nygård, Jesper

AU - Liu, Huiyun

AU - Aagesen, Martin

PY - 2013/2/19

Y1 - 2013/2/19

N2 - Continued development of high-efficiency multi-junction solar cells requires growth of lattice-mismatched materials. Today, the need for lattice matching both restricts the bandgap combinations available for multi-junctions solar cells and prohibits monolithic integration of high-efficiency III-V materials with low-cost silicon solar cells. The use of III-V nanowires is the only known method for circumventing this lattice-matching constraint, and therefore it is necessary to develop growth of nanowires with bandgaps >1.4 eV. Here we present the first gold-free gallium arsenide phosphide nanowires grown on silicon by means of direct epitaxial growth. We demonstrate that their bandgap can be controlled during growth and fabricate core-shell nanowire solar cells. We further demonstrate that surface passivation is of crucial importance to reach high efficiencies, and present a record efficiency of 10.2% for a core-shell single-nanowire solar cell.

AB - Continued development of high-efficiency multi-junction solar cells requires growth of lattice-mismatched materials. Today, the need for lattice matching both restricts the bandgap combinations available for multi-junctions solar cells and prohibits monolithic integration of high-efficiency III-V materials with low-cost silicon solar cells. The use of III-V nanowires is the only known method for circumventing this lattice-matching constraint, and therefore it is necessary to develop growth of nanowires with bandgaps >1.4 eV. Here we present the first gold-free gallium arsenide phosphide nanowires grown on silicon by means of direct epitaxial growth. We demonstrate that their bandgap can be controlled during growth and fabricate core-shell nanowire solar cells. We further demonstrate that surface passivation is of crucial importance to reach high efficiencies, and present a record efficiency of 10.2% for a core-shell single-nanowire solar cell.

U2 - 10.1038/ncomms2510

DO - 10.1038/ncomms2510

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 23422666

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 4

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 1498

ER -