Related papers: Si nano-VINe: Electrical Percolation in Quantum-Co…
The inherent network of nanopores and voids in silicon dioxide (SiO2) is generally undesirable for aspects of film quality, electrical insulation and dielectric performance. However, if we view these pores as natural nano-patterns embedded…
Recently, a homogenization procedure has been proposed, based on the tight lower bounds of the Bergman-Milton formulation, and successfully applied to dilute ternary nanocomposites to predict optical data without using any fitting…
First-principles calculations are performed to study the structural and optoelectronic properties of the newly synthesized nonisovalent and lattice-matched (Si2)0.6(AlP)0.4 alloy [T. Watkins et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 16212.] We…
Carbon materials are excellent candidates for photovoltaic solar cells: they are Earth-abundant, possess high optical absorption, and superior thermal and photostability. Here we report on solar cells with active layers made solely of…
We systematically investigate the optical behaviors of an amorphous silicon solar cell based on a core-shell nanograting structure. The horizontally propagating Bloch waves and Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) waves lead to significant…
Silicon's inherently indirect bandgap severely limits its radiative efficiency, posing a fundamental challenge to the development of practical silicon-based light sources. While strategies such as nanoscale confinement of electrons and…
Here, we report the first experimental demonstration of InN nanowire solar cells deposited by RF sputtering with a bandgap energy of 1.78 eV. By adding an amorphous Si (a-Si) buffer to the n-InN/p-Si structure, we have improved the…
In conventional solar cell semiconductor materials (predominantly Si) photons with energy higher than the band gap initially generate hot electrons and holes, which subsequently cool down to the band edge by phonon emission. Due to the…
We introduce a general method which allows reconstruction of electronic band structure of nanocrystals from ordinary real-space electronic structure calculations. A comprehensive study of band structure of a realistic nanocrystal is given…
Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells represent a promising technological approach towards higher photovoltaics efficiencies and lower fabrication cost. While the device physics of SHJ solar cells have been studied extensively in the…
Bulk silicon carbide (SiC) is a very promising material system for bio-applications and quantum sensing. However, its optical activity lies beyond the near infrared spectral window for in-vivo imaging and fiber communications due to a large…
Low cost, highly efficient, and stable solar cells demand low temperature processing, less stringent criteria on materials, and possibility of dynamic recovery from long term degradation: a combination of features unachievable from the…
In this paper we review the theory of silicon nanowires. We focus on nanowires with diameters below 10 nm, where quantum effects become important and the properties diverge significantly from those of bulk silicon. These wires can be…
The goal of nanophotonics is to control and manipulate light at length scales below the diffraction limit. Typically nanostructured metals are used for this purpose, light being confined by exploiting the surface plasmon-polaritons such…
Intermediate band solar cells hold the promise of ultrahigh power conversion efficiencies using a single semiconductor junction. Many current implementations use materials with bandgaps too small to achieve maximum efficiency or use…
Reducing the thickness of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells is a key objective in order to reduce production cost and to improve sustainability. The major challenge for sub-micron Cu(In,Ga)Se2 cells is the recombination at the backside. In standard…
Using empirical scheme, atomic structure of a new exotic class of silicon nanoclusters was elaborated upon the central icosahedral core (Si-IC) and pentagonal petals (Si-PP) growing from Si-IC vertexes. It was shown that Si-IC/Si-PP…
Selenium, the world's oldest photovoltaic material, has experienced a renaissance in research over the past decade, with certified solar cell efficiencies climbing from the historical record of 5% to breaking the 10% barrier. Its wide…
The integration of two-dimensional (2D) periodic nanopattern defined by nanoimprint lithography and dry etching into aluminum induced crystallization (AIC) based polycrystalline silicon (Poly-Si) thin film solar cells is investigated…
The Shockley-Queisser limit describes the maximum solar energy conversion efficiency achievable for a particular material and is the standard by which new photovoltaic technologies are compared. This limit is based on the principle of…