Bismuth-Catalyzed and Doped Silicon Nanowires for One-Pump-Down Fabrication of Radial Junction Solar Cells

Linwei Yu (1) , Franck Fortuna (2) , Benedict O'Donnell (1) , Taewoo Jeon , Martin Foldyna (1) , Gennaro Picardi , Pere Roca I Cabarrocas (1)

1 LPICM - Laboratoire de physique des interfaces et des couches minces [Palaiseau]
2 CSNSM PS2

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are becoming a popular choice to develop a new generation of radial junction solar cells. We here explore a bismuth- (Bi-) catalyzed growth and doping of SiNWs, via vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mode, to fabricate amorphous Si radial n-i-p junction solar cells in a one-pump-down and low-temperature process in a single chamber plasma deposition system. We provide the first evidence that catalyst doping in the SiNW cores, caused by incorporating Bi catalyst atoms as n-type dopant, can be utilized to fabricate radial junction solar cells, with a record open circuit voltage of V-oc = 0.76 V and an enhanced light trapping effect that boosts the short circuit current to J(sc) = 11.23 mA/cm(2). More importantly, this bi-catalyzed SiNW growth and doping strategy exempts the use of extremely toxic phosphine gas, leading to significant procedure simplification and cost reduction for building radial junction thin film solar cells.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Condensed Matter [cond-mat]; Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Linwei Yu, Franck Fortuna, Benedict O'Donnell, Taewoo Jeon, Martin Foldyna, et al.. Bismuth-Catalyzed and Doped Silicon Nanowires for One-Pump-Down Fabrication of Radial Junction Solar Cells. Nano Letters, 2012, 12, pp.4153-4158. ⟨10.1021/NL3017187⟩. ⟨hal-00757353⟩