Optical and electrical simulations of silicon nanowire array/Poly(3-hexylthiophene):Phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester hybrid solar cell

A coupled three-dimensional optoelectrical simulation was used to evaluate the optical and electrical designs requirements for improving the efficiency of Si nanowire array (NWA)/Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) solar cells. Due to the addition of organic coating layers, better light absorptions are observed for the Si NWA/P3HT:PCBM structure at the wavelengths both below and above the absorption cutoff wavelengths of P3HT:PCBM. Optimized optical designs are obtained by maximizing the ultimate photocurrent under AM1.5G illumination. Furthermore, from the electrical simulation of the solar cell at optimized photo-absorption structure, the proposed Si NWA/P3HT:PCBM hybrid cell exhibits a promising character that is insensitive to exciton recombination at the optimized coating thickness of 80 nm. An efficiency of 9.4% can still be obtained even at high bimolecular recombination rates.