Optical and electrical modeling of solar cells based on graphene/Si nanowires with radial p–i–n junctions

•An array of vertically aligned SiNWs/G with radial p–i–n junction is studied.•The model is taking into account radiative, Shockley–Read–Hall, Auger and surface recombination.•The optimized conversion efficiency of about 12% is obtained at room temperature.•With increasing the filling ratio, fill factor (FF) and η increase mainly due to the increase of Jsc.•The increasing of temperature increases Jsc and decreases Voc and η.

A solar cell based on vertically aligned silicon p–i–n, core–shell–shell, nanowires interfacing with graphene film is proposed to exploit the benefits of short carrier collection lengths of radial p–i–n junction nanowires and transparency of graphene. A physical device model incorporated with optical characteristics taking into account all recombination processes is established to optimize its electrical performance by modifying nanowires density, filling ratio and thickness. Also, the dependence of the proposed structure to temperature variations and the number of graphene layers on its performance is investigated.

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