Enhanced absorption of solar energy in elliptical GaAs nanowire array solar cells

In this paper, we studied the optical absorption spectra of circular and elliptical gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowire array (NWA) solar cells by using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation. Optical absorption enhancement is important for achieving high efficiency solar cells with reduced material. We compare the optical absorption of circular and elliptical GaAs NWA solar cells. It is found that elliptical GaAs NWA solar cells perform enhanced overall light absorption as compared with circular GaAs NWA solar cells due to reduced reflection from the top surface and reduced transmission from the bottom surface of NWA solar cells.