Construction of Schottky junction solar cell using silicon nanowires and multi-layered graphene

Schottky junction solar cells based on n-type silicon nanowires (SiNWs) and multi-layered graphene were assembled. The textured substrates enhanced the light-harvesting compared to the planar substrates. Multi-layered graphene films produced by chemical vapor deposition and layer-by-layer stacking mitigated damages and increased the work function of graphene. Thus, both the power conversion efficiency and fill factor of Schottky junction solar cells could be improved with multi-layered graphene. It was found in the present study that the optimum photovoltaics performance of solar cells was achieved when double-layered graphene was used. The performance degraded with the number of graphene layers when it was more than 2 layers. While damages could be mitigated and the work function could be improved using multi-layered graphene in SiNWs Schottky junction solar cells, the optical transmittance of graphene would be reduced with excessive number of graphene layers.