Strained Carbon Nanotube (SCNT) Thin Layer Effect on GaAs Solar Cells Efficiency

In this paper, the effect of strain on the efficiency of GaAs solar cell isinvestigated. It has been shown that the applied strain during the synthesizing of carbonnanotubes (CNTs) leads to changing some of its physical properties. This means that strainscan cause numerous changes in the structures. By using a strained layer of the carbonnanotubes on the GaAs solar cell, the effect of this layer on the performance of the GaAssolar cell is evaluated. This CNT layer can be used for several purposes. The first is tocreate a transparent electrical conductor at the cell surface to increase the output current.This purpose is one of the most important applications of this layer. But the second andmore important goal is to capture more photons and reduce the emission or reflection oflight emitted onto the cell surface. It is found that the mentioned goals cannot be satisfiedsimultaneously. Accordingly, to solve this problem, two different layers were used toachieve the ideal conditions. It has been shown that the use of a 10% uniaxial strained CNTlayer leads to increase the photon absorption rate onto a non-strained CNT layer forelectrical purposes. The efficiency of the single-junction GaAs solar cell with the aboveconditions reaches about 31% which is about 2% higher than the model without strain.