School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
Nano Lett. 2012 Jun 13;12(6):3302-7. doi: 10.1021/nl3014082. Epub 2012 May 31.
Nanowire solar cells are promising candidates for powering nanosystems and flexible electronics. The strain in the nanowires, introduced during growth, device fabrication and/or application, is an important issue for piezoelectric semiconductor (like CdS, ZnO, and CdTe) based photovoltaic. In this work, we demonstrate the first largely enhanced performance of n-CdS/p-Cu(2)S coaxial nanowire photovoltaic (PV) devices using the piezo-phototronics effect when the PV device is subjected to an external strain. Piezo-phototronics effect could control the electron-hole pair generation, transport, separation, and/or recombination, thus enhanced the performance of the PV devices by as high as 70%. This effect offers a new concept for improving solar energy conversation efficiency by designing the orientation of the nanowires and the strain to be purposely introduced in the packaging of the solar cells. This study shed light on the enhanced flexible solar cells for applications in self-powered technology, environmental monitoring, and even defensive technology.
纳米线太阳能电池是为纳米系统和柔性电子设备供电的有前途的候选者。在生长、器件制造和/或应用过程中引入的纳米线应变是基于压电半导体（如 CdS、ZnO 和 CdTe）的光伏的一个重要问题。在这项工作中，当光伏器件受到外部应变时，我们展示了使用压光电效应的 n-CdS/p-Cu(2)S 同轴纳米线光伏 (PV) 器件的首次性能大幅提高。压光电效应可以控制电子-空穴对的产生、传输、分离和/或复合，从而将 PV 器件的性能提高高达 70%。该效应通过设计纳米线的取向和在太阳能电池封装中有意引入的应变，为提高太阳能转换效率提供了一个新概念。这项研究为应用于自供电技术、环境监测甚至防御技术的增强型柔性太阳能电池提供了启示。
