Experimental and theoretical study of low-cost hydrothermally grown nanowire silicon solar cell

The low cost and high absorbance is the two most important considerations for thin-film silicon photovoltaics. In this work, aluminum doped zinc oxide(AZO) nanowire is grown by low cost hydrothermal method and nano-structured amorphous silicon(α-Si) solar cell is realized on these AZO nanowire substrate. The experimental result shows superior light trapping property compared to conventional planar structure with 18.83% improvement in photocurrent. Simulation result shows the required thickness for full absorption for high aspect ratio AZO nanowire solar cell is ~0.3 m, much thinner than planar type solar cell. The calculation reveals that solar cell absorbance increases with the nanowire length and packing density, indicating material volume is the first order effect for nanowire solar cells. The proposed low-cost AZO nanowire array amorphous silicon solar cell is very promising for future nanostructured silicon photovoltaics.