Modeling, synthesis and study of highly efficient solar cells based on III-nitride nanowire arrays grown on Si substrates

Abstract

In this letter we investigate photovoltaic properties of GaN nanowires (NWs) – Si substrate heterostructure obtained by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Antireflection properties of the NW array were studied theoretically and experimentally to show an order of magnitude enhancement in antireflection comparing to the pure Si surface (2.5% vs. 33.8%). In order to determine optimal morphology and doping levels of the structure with maximum possible efficiency we simulated it's properties using a finite difference method. The carried out simulation showed that a maximum efficiency should be 20%.