Silicon-Nanowire Hybrid Solar Cells Fabricated with Thin-Film Absorber
In recent years, great effort has been devoted to developing cost-effective silicon nanowires (SiNWs) on organic solar cells hybridized with silicon (Si) wafers. To date, these materials have demonstrated a promising power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 10%. However, this excellent performance is substantially owed to the photocurrent generated in the costly, bulky Si wafer. For low-cost applications, alternative approaches that bypass bulky wafers — such as fabricating the SiNWs on thin-film Si — should be considered. Recently, we reported the development of SiNW/poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate hybrid solar cells using only a thin layer of epitaxial Si absorber deposited on a heavily doped Si substrate. [SPIE Newsroom, 7 Aug 2012]