Efficient Photon Capturing\nwith Ordered Three-Dimensional\nNanowell Arrays

Abstract

Unique light-matter interaction at nanophotonic regime\ncan be harnessed\nfor designing efficient photonic and optoelectronic devices such as\nsolar cells, lasers, and photodetectors. In this work, periodic photon\nnanowells are fabricated with a low-cost and scalable approach, followed\nby systematic investigations of their photon capturing properties\ncombining experiments and simulations. Intriguingly, it is found that\na proper periodicity greatly facilitates photon capturing process\nin the nanowells, primarily owing to optical diffraction. Meanwhile,\nthe nanoengineered morphology renders the nanostructures with a broad-band\nefficient light absorption. The findings in this work can be utilized\nto implement a new type of nanostructure-based solar cells. Also,\nthe methodology applied in this work can be generalized to rational\ndesign of other types of efficient photon-harvesting devices.