Numerical Study On The Optical Properties Of Silicon Nanowire Arrays For Thin Film Solar Cells

The silicon nanowire arrays(SiNWs)are widely studied as a effective means in thin film solar cell since the good properties of optics. The optics properties of silicon nanowires highly depend on the shape, size and their patterns. In this study, the effect of three silicon nanowires shapes and three SiNWs tiling patterns on optics properties are studied in solar cells. Three silicon nanowire shapes including cylinder, cone and cylinder-cone, three SiNWs tiling patterns including square, triangle and hexagon.We study the optics properties of the SiNWs in the0.3μm-1.2μm wavelength region. According to the Rigorous Couple Wave Analysis, we calculate the absorption of three kinds of silicon nanowires structures and three SiNWs types with different periods and duty ratio, analyze the silicon nanowires’shapes and arranged patterns on the effect of the optics properties, and then optimize the structure parameters to obtain the maximum absorption.The main results show that:1) The absorption edge significantly shifts toward the long-wave region when increasing the nanowire period and duty ratio, and the ultimate efficiency could be enhanced effectively with the increase in the SiNWs period and duty ratio in some extent.2) If the SiNWs pattern is fixed, different silicon nanowires shapes exhibit the different effect of the structure parameters on optics properties.3) If the silicon nanowires shape is fixed, different SiNWs patterns exhibit the different effect of the structure parameters on optics properties, and different maximum absorptions are obtained with different structure parameters. The optimization shows that the hexagon cylinder-cone SiNWs will give the maximum absorption ultimate efficiency34.67%.