title: Efficiency enhancement of InP nanowire solar cells by surface cleaning.
abstract: We demonstrate an efficiency enhancement of an InP nanowire (NW) axial p-n junction solar cell by cleaning the NW surface. NW arrays were grown with in situ HCl etching on an InP substrate patterned by nanoimprint lithography, and the NWs surfaces were cleaned after growth by piranha etching. We find that the postgrowth piranha etching is critical for obtaining a good solar cell performance. With this procedure, a high diode rectification factor of 10(7) is obtained at ±1 V. The resulting NW solar cell exhibits an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.73 V, a short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 21 mA/cm(2), and a fill factor (FF) of 0.73 at 1 sun. This yields a power conversion efficiency of up to 11.1% at 1 sun and 10.3% at 12 suns.
authors.affiliation: COBRA Research Institute, Eindhoven University of Technology , P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Yingchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Sebastien R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Plissard
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cavalli
authors.forename: Thuy T T
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Vu
authors.forename: Rene P J
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: van Veldhoven
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trainor
authors.forename: Marcel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Verheijen
authors.forename: Jos E M
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Haverkort
authors.forename: Erik P A M
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Bakkers