Paper 13360-34
Paper 13360-34
Optimizing SiNWs shapes for improved solar cell performance
29 January 2025 • 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM PST | Moscone West, Room 2003 (Level 2)
Abstract
Silicon nanowires, as a one-dimensional nanostructure with interesting optical and electrical properties, offer several advantages in many leading applications such as solar cells (which is a source of clean and renewable energy), including low cost because silicon is a highly abundant material, and the properties of nanowires allow for the use of less material and higher efficiency. In this study, several nanowire shapes are numerically investigated and integrated into different solar cells utilizing lumerical finite difference time domain to determine the generation rate and current density. The charge solver is used to examine electrical properties such as short circuit current, open circuit voltage, and Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE). Since the dimensions of the nanowires greatly influence their attributes, this study looks at varying the diameter and length of the nanowires to improve the solar cell's PCE and light absorption in order to satisfy commercial demands. By optimizing the diameter of the two perpendicular ellipses to break the symmetry, a flower-shaped nanowire solar cell from earlier research is enhanced, resulting in a 2.76% higher PCE as well as better current density and light absorption, given that the PCE obtained by the literature is 9.6%. The PCE increased to 12.36% with the adjusted dimensions, the short circuit current density to 22.8227 mA/cm^2 from 18.68 mA/cm2, and the open circuit voltage to 0.72 V from 0.68 V in the literature. The goal of the study is to compare various conical shapes to reduce the symmetry of nanowires in order to get better optical and electrical properties of the solar cell.
Presenter
The American Univ. in Cairo (Egypt)
Mohamed Swillam received his PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, in 2008. After graduation, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the same group. In October 2009, he joined the Department of Physics and the Institute of Optical Sciences at the University of Toronto, where he works as a research fellow. In September 2011, he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Department of Physics, The American University in Cairo (AUC). He is now a Professor at the Department of Physics at AUC. His research interests mainly focus on nanophysics with emphasis on design optimization and fabrication of active and passive nanophotonic and plasmonic devices and systems, silicon photonics, optical interconnects, integrated on-chip optical systems, lab-on-chip, nano-antenna, metamaterials, and solar cells. The main applications include biomedical systems, energy harvesting, and telecommunications. He authored more than 250 technical papers in highly-ranked journals and conferences.