Study of a Single Coaxial Silicon Nanowire

for On-Chip Integrated Photovoltaic

Application

Oka Kurniawan
Er Ping Li

International Symposium on Integrated Circuit

14th to 16th December 2009
Singapore
Nanowires for integrated circuits have been demonstrated

Nanowire thin-film transistor act

as an inverter

AND – OR gate using coaxial p-n nanowire

Friedman, et al. Nature, 434, p. 1085, 2005

Tian, et al. Nature, 449, p. 885, 2007

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A single nanowire has been used to power up nano-electronic circuit

Tian, et al. Nature, 449, p. 885, 2007

Cui, et al. Nature, 293, p. 1289, 2001

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How does a coaxial nanowire work as a photovoltaic device?

p-type
intrinsic
n-type
EC e-

ħω
EF
EV
h+

p-type intrinsic n-type

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Why coaxial silicon nanowire is interesting for photovoltaic devices

• Less material
• Enhanced absorption
• Bandgap engineering
• Efficient extraction along axis

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To study a single coaxial Silicon nanowire for photovoltaic device

AM1.5G illumination

P-type radius = 50 nm
i-layer thickness = 30 nm
N-type thickness = 100 nm

Length = 1 µm

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Dark current-voltage characteristic

Ideality factor:
N = 1.07

Experiment,
N = 1.96

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Current voltage characteristic under AM 1.5G illumination

Open circuit voltage: Experiments

VOC = 0.47 V VOC = 0.26 V

Short circuit current:

ISC = 0.490 nA ISC = 0.503 nA

Power:
P = 230 pW P = 72 pW

Fill factor:
Ffill = 0.85 Ffill = 0.55

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Potential profile for both dark and under illumination

V = 0.0 V = 1.0

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Photogeneration rate as a function of axial distance

Generation rate:

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Effect of surface recombination velocity

S = 1.0 E+04 cm/s

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Summary

• Modeled and simulated a

single coaxial nanowire

• Obtained the I-V under both

dark and AM1.5G
illumination

• Studied potential profile and

effect of surface
recombination

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Lateral confinement causes abrupt potential drop along axis

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Large radius nanowire will have largest built-in potential along axis

R = 150 nm

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Plot of recombination rate at the surface

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