Enhanced light-harvesting capability for silicon single-nanowire solar cells coupled with metallic cavity.

Single-nanowire solar cells (SNSCs) are attracting increasing interest due to their unique optical antenna effect beneficial for achieving higher light-trapping capability. However, for conventional circular-cross-sectional SNSCs, the light-trapping performance is still far from the expectation. Here we demonstrate that integrating a silicon single nanowire into a metallic slit can dramatically enhance the absorption efficiency over almost the whole spectral band due to strengthened optical antenna effect. Especially, it is found that by using finite-size metallic blocks to form a nanoscale metallic cavity, the light-trapping performance of the SNSCs can be further improved. Through examining the detailed optical spectral response, electric field distribution, and cavity dispersion characteristics, the metallic-coupled SNSC system is optimized and the underlying physics are provided. Simulation results indicate that the photocurrent density of the SNSCs coupled with the designed metallic cavity can be enhanced by 44.4% than that of the conventional bare SNSCs.