Extremely high short-circuit current density in vertical single nanowire solar cells

By combining Finite-Difference-Time-Domain simulations and the detailed-balance model of solar cell, we study how absorption efficiency determines the short circuit current density, J
_sc
, of single vertical nanowire (NW) solar cells. We find that due to the very high absorption efficiency, vertical NW delivers J
_sc
that are one order of magnitude higher than planar solar cells.