Technology
Nanowire based devices
Nanowires are an exceptional material that can exploit their very high aspect ratio to create disruptive solar designs. In their long dimension, nanowires can be 10's of microns long and in their diameter they can be less than 10 nm thick. When organized along the direction of light propagation, the length of the wire acts as an efficient capture cross-section for light, while the electrons only need to travel the length of the diameter before reaching their electrode minimizing the probability of recombination. The end result is a solar design that can be very efficient and utilizes substantially less silicon. In addition, these nanowire architectures are not limited to silicon but can be synthesized in many different opto-electronic materials.
To enable this disruptive solar concept a series of core technologies and demonstrations are required. 1) The ability to synthesis nanowires in a cost effective manner 2) A demonstrated ability to create high quality electronic materials with high electron and hole mobility 3) The ability to deposit and organize nanowires along the direction of light propagation. 4) The ability to create advanced core-shell heterostructures of the nanowires that can efficiently transport the electron and hole (example of core shell nanowire in picture above). And, 5) An advanced binding chemistry that maintains the properties on the wires when formulated into a composite. Nanosys is the worlds leading nanowire company and has demonstrated all of these core technologies. QD Soleil has consolidated all of this for use in solar. Already the highest quality nanowires are manufactured for use in display applications such as LCD and OLED thin film transistors. Finally, novel architectures such as quantum dot sensitized nanowires are also possible with this underlying technology. The use of nanowires is an area of significant interest and investment within the solar industry, for which QD Soleil is now a leading company.
