Study of a Single Coaxial Silicon Nanowire for

On-Chip Integrated Photovoltaic Application

Oka Kurniawan and Er Ping Li
Computational Electronics and Photonics
Institute of High Performance Computing
Singapore
kurniawano@ihpc.a-star.edu.sg

Abstract—Nanowires have been identified as a promising

alternative for future electronics. A single coaxial nanowire
photovoltaic device has been fabricated to power up nanoelec-
tronic sensors and logic gates. The current work calculates and
analyses the performance of the coaxial silicon nanowire using
a semi-classical method. The current-voltage characteristics are
calculated for both under dark and AM1.5G illumination. Some
interesting phenomena is observed from the two-dimensional
plot of the potential. Furthermore, the effect of the surface
recombination, which is significant in nanoscale devices, is also
studied.
Index Terms—Photovoltaic cells, Nanotechnology, Quantum
wires.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Nanoelectronics provide a promising alternative to enhance
the performance of electronic devices as well as to continue the
scaling of Moore’s law. Logic circuits have successfuly been
fabricated using nanowires [1]. Not only that, researchers from
Harvard have shown that self-powered nanosystems are not
far beyond our reach [2]. These self-powered nanosystems use
solar energy and convert them into electrical power through
photovoltaic effect. In Ref. [2], a silicon nanowire pH sensor
was powered by a single coaxial silicon nanowire photovoltaic
device. The same paper also shows the operation of AND
logic gates fabricated from nanowires and powered by two
coaxial silicon nanowires photovoltaic devices. Our current
work studies the performance of this coaxial silicon nanowire
photovoltaic device using a semi-classical simulation.
In the earlier experiments, nanowires were mostly used
simply as a conducting channel for enhancing the electron
transport [3], [4]. It was then shown that silicon nanowires
have the potential to give an improved optical absorption [5].
This means that silicon nanowires can be used as photovoltaic
devices where photogeneration occurs. However, for a pho-
tovoltaic device to work properly, a built-in electric field is
necessary for electron-hole charge separation. In other words,
either a p-n junction or a Schottky barrier must be present in
the device.
There are two ways to realize a photovoltaic device from
silicon nanowires. The first is to fabricate a p-n junction silicon
nanowire [2], [6]–[8], and the second is to create a Schottky
contact in one of the nanowire’s electrode [9]. In this paper,
we will investigate the coaxial p-n junction silicon nanowire
configuration (Fig. 1). The advantage of this configuration is
(a)
(b)
Fig. 1: Simulation scheme of a coaxial nanowire. The nanowire
has a diameter of 360 nm and a length of 1µm. Thickness
of the i-layer and n-type layer is set to 80 nm and 100 nm
respectively.
that the charge separation can occur efficiently throughout
the nanowire lengths along the radial direction. Since the
separation occurs in the radial direction, which is smaller than
the minority carrier diffusion length, the bulk recombination
decreases significantly, and hence, improves the efficiency.
The core p-type nanowire is usually synthesized by means
of a vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) method. Afterwards, silicon
shells can be deposited at a higher temperature and lower
pressure to allow for the axial growth of the silicon nanowire
core. During this deposition, phosphine is used as the n-type
dopant in the outer shell. The cross-section of such a coaxial
nanowire is shown in Fig. 1 (b).
We recognize that very few studies were done using sim-
ulation tools. Most of the works in the literature consists of
either experiments or analytical analysis with approximations
[11]. In this work we pursue the analysis using a numerical
simulation to give a better picture and understanding of the
working of the on-chip nanowire photovoltaic device.

314 ISIC 2009

 We study the current-voltage characteristic of the coaxial 1800

Spectram Irradiance (W m-2 µm-1)

nanowire and compared them to an experimental data obtained 1600
in [2]. The transport properties were calculated using semi- 1400
classical method and were found to agree with experiments. 1200
We also plot the current-voltage characteristics under both dark 1000
and AM1.5 Global solar illumination. It was found that our 800

short circuit current is about the same as the experiment while 600
400
our open circuit voltage is slightly larger. The potential plot
200
shows that most of the potential drop occurs near the anode.
0
Moreover, the built-in electric fields are not uniform along the 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
axis of the nanowire, but rather decrease as it moves away Wavelength (µm)

from the anode. The surface recombination was also studied

Fig. 2: Solar spectrum air mass 1.5 global (AM 1.5 G)
and was shown to affect the performance of the device.
irradiance.
II. P HOTOVOLTAIC S IMULATIONS
8.0e-06
We simulate the device shown in Fig. 1 using ATLAS, Simulation
Tian et al.
a 2D/3D semiconductor device simulator [10]. Due to its 6.0e-06
symmetry, we simulate the device only in two dimensions and

Current (A)
use the cylindrical coordinate system. The radius of the core 4.0e-06
p-type nanowire is 100 nm. The thicknesses of the i-layer and
the n-type layer are 80 nm and 100 nm respectively. This gives 2.0e-06
us a nanowire with a diameter size of 360 nm. This diameter
size is about the same as size of the nanowires in [2]. The 0.0e+00

length of our nanowire, on the other hand, is set to be one
micron which is smaller than the one in [2]. The reason for
using a smaller nanowire length is to save computational time.
The electrodes are placed so as to immitate the configuration
shown in Fig. 1 (a).
The transport properties are calculated using the drift-
diffusion model. The validity of using such a semi-classical
approach for the nanowire size considered in this work has
been discussed in [11], [12]. In the calculation, we enabled
the Shockley-Read-Hall recombination and concentration de-
pendent mobility. We first solved the Poisson-Schrodinger
equations self-consistently to see whether any quantum effect
can be observed. But the results suggest that the quantum con-
finement effect is pretty small. Using an infinite potential well
approximation, the first bound state is only about 0.01 meV
above the conduction band, which supports the conclusion of
the self-consistent calculation.
The dark current-voltage characteristic was first obtained.
The potential and the band energy of the coaxial nanowires
were calculated self-consistently. After the dark properties
were obtained, the nanowire was illuminated with AM 1.5
Global solar irradiance. The spectrum of this solar illumination
is shown in Fig. 2. To perform this illumination we enabled
the multi-spectral photogeneration in the simulator. The power
of the solar spectrum was scaled by 1.5  10
3 to give a short
circuit current in the pico Ampere range.
The generation rate is calculated from
» value of the concentration is about 7.41016 cm
3 , which is
P pλqLλ
G  η0 α expp
αxqdλ (1)
hc
where the integration is over the wavelength λ, P pλq is the
power spectral density of the light source, L is the factor repre-
senting the cummulative loss due to reflections, transmissions,
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Voltage (V)
Fig. 3: Dark current-voltage characteristic in comparison with
the data obtained from [2]. The doping concentration was
estimated to give a turn on voltage of about 0.7 V, and the
contact resistance is added to give the correct slope.
and absorption, α is the absorption coefficient, and x is the
radial distance from the surface. The absorption coefficient is
in turn calculated from
α
4π
k (2)
λ
where k is the imaginary part of the optical refraction index.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
Fig. 3 shows the current-voltage characteristic of the simula-
tion result under the dark condition. We also compare the result
with that obtained from Fig. 2 of [2]. The results agree with the
experimental data. The turn on voltage for our simulation is
about 0.7 V and the slope for high bias is about 6  10
6
A/V or 167 kΩ. Note that in this simulation we take into
account the contact resistance by adding a series resistance
to the contact. The work in [2] did not report the doping
concentration of their devices. And so in our simulation, the
doping was estimated to give about 0.7 V turn on voltage. The
about the same as the one reported in [9].
Now, it is interesting to plot the two dimensional potential
profile of the device under dark condition. Fig. 4 shows us
this plot. The first plot is the potential profile under zero bias,
while the second one is under 1.0 V bias. Notice that even

315

(a)
(b)
Fig. 4: (a) Potential profile under zero bias. (b) Potential Profile
with the anode is biased by 1.0V. The anode is located at the
top left while the cathode is at the right bottom. The dark black
lines distinguishes the three regions of the nanowire, left: p-
type, center: i-layer, right: n-type.
under zero bias, we can see some potential gradient due to
the p-n junction. This potential difference implies that there
is a built-in electric field inside the material. We can obtain
some interesting observations by taking a cut of the potential
profile at y  500 nm. There we can see the usual p-n
junction potential profile but with a smaller built-in electric
field of slightly above 0.17 eV. Now at y  1µm, the built-
in electric field is smaller and roughly can be taken to be
0.17 eV. However, near the anode on the top, we observe a
significant potential drop and a larger built-in electric field. A
built in electric field of about 0.7 eV can be observed when
taking a cut line at y  0. Hence, most of the potential drop
occurs at the p-type core nanowires near the anode. This also
implies a drop in the electron concentration or an increase in
the hole concentration near the anode. We can conclude then
that the built-in electric field decreases along the length of the
nanowires from about 0.7 eV near the anode to about 0.17 eV
near the cathode.
The potential plot under 1.0 V bias also reveal some inter-
esting observation. The potential drop now is more uniform
along the length of the nanowire as compared the zero bias
potential profile. We can observe as well that there are regions
with very little barrier for electrons to move from the n-type
316
2.0e-10
Dark
AM1.5G
0.0e+00
Current (A)
-2.0e-10
-4.0e-10
-6.0e-10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Voltage (V)
Fig. 5: Current-voltage characteristic under AM1.5G illumina-
tion. The short circuit current is about 0.490 nA and the open
circuit voltage is about 0.470 V. This results in a power of
about 230 pW.
shell to the p-type core. This is a similar effect normally found
in the forward bias case of a planar p-n junction.
Under zero bias, when the light shines on the nanowire, the
electron-hole pairs are generated, and the built-in electric field
seperates the charges which then contribute as electric current.
This is measured as a negative current on the anode. Hence,
the solar illumination causes the current-voltage characteristic
to shift downwards.
The current-voltage characteristic under AM1.5G illumina-
tion is shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the open circuit
voltage Voc is about 0.470 V and the short circuit current Isc
is about 0.490 nA. We note that our open circuit voltage is
higher than [2], while our short circuit current is about the
same as the value stated in [2], which is about 0.503 nA.
Note that the calculated available photocurrent is about
0.780 nA, whereas the short circuit photocurrent is about 0.490
nA. This means that about 62% of the carriers contribute as a
current in the external circuit. The power calculated from the
open circuit voltage and the short circuit current is about 230
pW. This is larger than the one reported in [2] which is about
72 pW. This is because our device has a larger open circuit
voltage. Nevertheless, the values are still reasonable since
silicon nanowire photovoltaic elements can produce from about
50 pW to about 200 pW per nanowire at 1-sun illumination.
To work as a nanoscale power supplies, the output power must
be higher than a few nanoWatt. In order to increase the power,
the light intensity should be larger, or several nanowires should
be used together.
Next, we plot the photogeneration rate along the radial
direction. This is shown in Fig. 6. We expect that the curve
is higher than the exponential behaviour of intensity decay
in a bulk material. The reason is that in this simulation
we illuminate the nanowire all around. And hence, there is
illumination from other sides of the nanowire, which results
in a higher absorption by the nanowire. In reality, however, the
illumination usually only occurs from only one direction rather
than all around. In this case, a three dimension simulation
must be performed to study the photogeneration rate inside
the nanowire.
 23.1
Photogeneration Rate (1/scm3)
23.0
22.9
22.8
22.7
22.6
22.5
22.4
22.3
22.2
0 0.04 0.08
Distance (µm)
Fig. 6: Photogeneration rate along the radial direction. The
distance is measured from the axis of the nanowire (x  0
nm) up to the surface of the nanowire (x  180 nm).
0
No surf. rec.
With surf. rec.
-1e-10
-2e-10
Current (A)
-3e-10
-4e-10
-5e-10
-6e-10
0 0.1 0.2
Voltage (V)
Fig. 7: Effect of surface recombination on the current-voltage
characteristic. Surface recombination velocity of 1  104 cm/s
reduces the short circuit current to about 0.342 nA.
Another factor that we study is the surface recombination at
the outer most nanowire shell. To take into account the surface
recombination, we added another thin layer of oxide and vary
the surface recombination velocity. Fig. 7 shows the effect of
adding a surface recombination value of 1  104 cm/s under the
same illumination condition which we previously considered.
It can be seen that the effect on the short circuit current is
much larger than the effect on the open circuit voltage.
Fig. 8 shows the variation of the short circuit current in the
presence of the surface recombination velocity. It can be seen
that the effect of the surface recombination is to reduce the
photocurrent. The short circuit current reduces to about 0.1 nA
for a very high surface recombination velocity. The drop seems
to saturate at the lower and higher recombination velocity
values. It is important, therefore, to study further the surface
recombination mechanism at nanowire and how it affects the
other performance parameters of the coaxial silicon nanowire
photovoltaic device.
IV. C ONCLUSION
We have simulated and modeled the coaxial silicon
nanowire used for photovoltaic devices. It was shown by
other researchers that such a device is able to power up
nanoelectronics devices that require power in the range of
nanoWatt. We have studied the mechanism of the nanowire
4.0e-10
3.5e-10
Short Circuit Current (A)
3.0e-10
2.5e-10
2.0e-10
1.5e-10
1.0e-10
5.0e-11
0.12 0.16 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109
Surface Recombination Velocity (cm/s)
Fig. 8: Plot of short circuit current versus surface recombina-
tion velocity.
solar cell by investigating the potential profile, the current-
voltage characteristic, the photogeneration rate, and the surface
recombination velocity. But, more studies are still needed,
especially on the surface recombination since this is a major
recombination phenomena in nanoscale devices. Future work
will focus on how to improve the performance and efficiency
of such device by designing the geometry and its material
properties.
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