Design guidelines of periodic Si nanowire arrays for solar cell application

In this letter, optimum periodic Si nanowire (SiNW) arrays are designed via simulation for solar cell application, in terms of the structural parameters, e.g., the array periodicity (P) and SiNW diameter (D). It is found that the more efficient light absorption compared to that of the Si thin film with the same thickness could be realized when P is between 250 and 1200 nm. Further, the ratio of D to P should be ≫0.5 (or more specifically ∼0.8) for the optimized solar energy harvesting. The underlying physics is also discussed in this work.