Insights on III-V engineered nanowires for high-efficiency solar cells

Free-standing nanowire (NW) heterostructures of III-V compound semiconductors are promising nano-systems for the fabrication of engineered efficient solar cells, novel and efficient light-emitting (LEDs, diode lasers) devices, as well as for fast and polarization-sensitive photo-detectors, finally solving persistent challenges of silicon integration. They are also strong candidates to the realization of future nanoscale single-photon emitters. Moreover, dense arrays of III-V compound NWs can constitute the active layer of advanced solar cells with enormous improvement in solar power conversion efficiency. Free-standing III-V NW heterostructures are therefore attracting continued research interest worldwide. Here, three case studies are presented: (i) GaAs-AlGaAs core-shell NWs; (ii) GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well tube (QWT) NWs; and (iii) GaAs-GaNAs-AlGaAs core-multishell NWs.