Non-Epitaxial GaAs Heterojunction Nanowire Solar Cells (PVSC)
- Creators
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Jahelka, Phillip R.
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Atwater, Harry A.
Abstract
The efficiency of substrate-removed GaAs nanowire solar cells can be increased to over 32% by borrowing processes and materials from GaAs MOSFETs and perovskite photovoltaics. Photogenerated carriers fundamentally limit the performance of off-wafer homojunction devices to less than 15% efficiency by creating low resistance pathways for minority carriers to recombine at ohmic contacts. We report the results of coupled optoelectronic device physics simulations of GaAs nanowire homojunction solar cells and GaAs nanocone heterojunction solar cells where SnO₂ and CuSCN are used for charge carrier collection. Our simulations include realistic recombination models for bulk and surface recombination. We find the optimal design is a radial junction with moderately p-type GaAs. Densities of states previously demonstrated in GaAs MOSFETs enable efficiencies greater than 30%.
Additional Information
© 2019 IEEE. The authors are grateful to Pilar Espinet-Gonzales for helpful discussions during drafting. This material is based upon work primarily supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) under NSF CA No. EEC-1041895. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of NSF or DOE.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 105966
- DOI
- 10.1109/PVSC40753.2019.9198966
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20201009-104033851
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- NSF
- EEC-1041895
- Created
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2020-10-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field