Novel Optical Properties of Si Nanowire Arrays

Si nanowires have exhibited unique optical characteristics, including nano-antenna effects due to the guided mode resonance, significant optical absorption enhancement in wide wavelength and incident angle range due to resonant optical modes, graded refractive index, and scattering. Since Si poor optical absorption coefficient due to indirect bandgap, all such properties have stimulated proposal of new optoelectronic devices whose performance can surpass that of conventional planar devices. We have carried out finite-difference time-domain simulation studies to design optimal Si nanowire array for solar cell applications. Optical reflectance, transmission, and absorption can be calculated for nanowire arrays with various diameter, length, and period. From the absorption, maximum achievable photocurrent can be estimated. In real devices, serious recombination loss occurring at the surface states is known to limit the photovoltaic performance of the nanowire-based solar cells. In order to address such issue, we will discuss how the geometric parameters of the array can influence the spatial distribution of the optical field (resulting optical generation rate) in the nanowires.