Growth of core-shell inP nanowires for photovoltaic application by selective-area metal organic vapor phase epitaxy

Abstract

We report on the formation of core-shell pn junction InP nanowires using a catalyst-free selective-area metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (SA-MOVPE) method. A periodically aligned dense core-shell InP nanowire array was fabricated and used in photovoltaic device applications. The device exhibited open-circuit voltage (VΌC), short-circuit current (/sc) and fill factor (FF) levels of 0.43 V, 13.72mA/cm^ and 0.57, respectively, which indicated a solar power conversion efficiency of 3.37% under AM1.5G illumination. This study demonstrates that high quality core-shell structure nanowire fabrication is possible by SA-MOVPE and that the nanowire arrays can be used in integrated nanowire photovoltaic devices. © 2009 The Japan Society of Applied Physics.