Coloured and Semi-Transparent Nanowire-based Solar Cells for Building Integrated Photovoltaics

TL;DR

This paper explores semiconductor nanowire-based semi-transparent solar cells for building integration, revealing their potential to outperform traditional designs through unique geometries and robustness under various lighting conditions.

Contribution

It introduces novel nanowire array geometries that optimize performance and transparency, surpassing existing semi-transparent photovoltaic limits.

Findings

Nanowire arrays outperform traditional semi-transparent PV limits.

Optimal NW diameter balances photocurrent and transmittance.

NW arrays are robust under different illumination conditions.

Abstract

Semi-transparent photovoltaics (ST-PV) provide smart spatial solutions to integrate solar cells into already-built areas. Here, we study the potential of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) as promising ST-PV. We perform FDTD simulations for different PV materials in a wide range of array geometries, from which we compute PV performance next to perceived appearance. Surprisingly we find an unusual compromise between photocurrent and transmittance as a function of NW diameter that enables NW-based PV to outperform theoretical limits of non-wavelength selective ST-PV. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate the robustness of NW arrays to different illumination conditions. We provide the origin behind the outperforming NW array geometries, which is crucial for designing NW-based ST-PV systems based on specific needs.