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Published February 2008 | public
Journal Article

Photovoltaic Measurements in Single-Nanowire Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

Single-nanowire solar cells were created by forming rectifying junctions in electrically contacted vapor−liquid−solid-grown Si nanowires. The nanowires had diameters in the range of 200 nm to 1.5 μm. Dark and light current−voltage measurements were made under simulated Air Mass 1.5 global illumination. Photovoltaic spectral response measurements were also performed. Scanning photocurrent microscopy indicated that the Si nanowire devices had minority carrier diffusion lengths of ∼2 μm. Assuming bulk-dominated recombination, this value corresponds to a minimum carrier lifetime of ∼15 ns, or assuming surface-dominated recombination, to a maximum surface recombination velocity of approximately 1350 cm s^(-1). The methods described herein comprise a valuable platform for measuring the properties of semiconductor nanowires, and are expected to be instrumental when designing an efficient macroscopic solar cell based on arrays of such nanostructures.

Additional Information

© 2008 American Chemical Society. Received October 10, 2007. Publication Date (Web): February 13, 2008. This work was supported by BP and in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant DMR 0606472 and also made use of facilities supported by the Center for Science and Engineering of Materials, an NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Caltech.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023