Highly Efficient Dome Shaped Nanowires Solar Cell

The optical characteristics of Si dome-tapered nanowires (NWs) solar cell (SC) are reported and analyzed by using finite difference time domain method. The geometrical parameters are studied to maximize the light absorption and hence the ultimate efficiency and short circuit current density of the reported NWs SC. The dome-shaped NWs show better absorption enhancement than the conventional conical design especially in the longer wavelength range. This is due to the better tapering gradient of the active material compared to the conventional conical-NWs. Therefore, the light reflection is reduced from the proposed NWs while the absorption is improved. The ultimate efficiency of the dome and conical shaped NWs are equal to 38% and 34.9%, respectively. Further, the achieved short circuit current density is equal to 33.6 mA/cm
²
with an improvement of 12.5% compared to the conical-NWs.