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Supplementary information for:

Surface passivated GaAsP single-nanowire solar cells exceeding 10% efficiency grown on silicon

Jeppe V. Holm1†, Henrik I. Jørgensen1†, Peter Krogstrup2, Jesper Nygård2,4, Huiyun Liu3 and Martin

Aagesen1†∗

1SunFlake A/S, Universitetsparken 5, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark, 2Nano-Science Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark, 3Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London, London WC1E 7JE, UK, 4Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.

†These authors contributed equally to this work

∗e-mail: martin.aagesen@sunflake.dk

The supplement includes more details on:

1. Nanowire core growth

2. Ideality factor, series and shunt resistance

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Supplementary Figures

Supplementary Figure S1. TEM image showing the full nanowire from Figure 1b and higher resolution

images of sections of the same wire. The crystal structure is almost phase perfect except from a few single

twins along the nanowire which are indicated by black arrows. At the bottom and top part of the nanowire

larger sections with multiple twins are present, as indicated by white arrows. The almost perfect middle

section shows that it is possible, by adjusting the growth parameters, to essentially eliminate

twinning in the GaAsP nanowires.

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Supplementary Figure S2. A TEM image of a bottom nanowire section. During the first part of the

nanowire growth, large sections of single twins or würtzite crystal segments form. Since the nanowire is

tilted slightly the hexagonal shape of the nanowire can be seen in the twin segments. The twinnings are not

caused by strain from the difference in lattice constants between the GaAsP and the Si, but are due to the

different growth conditions during this part of the nanowire growth. By adjusting the growth parameters

correctly it should hence be possible to eliminate the twinning entirely.

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Supplementary Figure S3. Diffraction image from core only GaAsP. The diffraction spots are a signature of

the face centred cubic crystal structure when viewed in the [011] zone axis. Since there are two atoms in

the brillouin zone (Ga and As/P) it is a zinc-blende signature. The image is obtained when looking at the

middle section of a nanowire. At the top and bottom of the nanowires, some of the spots may have

additional mirror spots as a signature of one or more twins. At areas with multiple twins close to each other

streaks between the main spots begin to develop. No other type of diffraction pattern has been found,

indicating that the wires have 6 equivalent [011] side facets.

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Supplementary Figure S4. EDX of core only GaAs1-xPx nanowires. a, b and c, Phosphorus content [x] of two

nanowires from three different nanowire growths. The sudden change in P content at the highest point is

measured at the very top of the nanowire. It should be noted that the content of group V in the liquid is

generally very low (see Supplementary Figure S4d,e,f), which implies a high uncertainty in the Group

V mole fractions. a, A growth where the P content was within the intended range x ~0.25. b, A growth

where the P content was lower than required x ~0.5-0.10. c, A growth where the P content was deliberately

changed from low (0.15) to high (0.70) during the growth. d, e and f, The atomic content of one of the

wires from respectively the a, b and c panels. The top data point shows that the catalyst particle is mostly

gallium. Since these are raw data the gallium content is not displayed as exactly 50%.

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Supplementary Figure S5. The emitted wavelength from room temperature photo luminescence

measurements of core only GaAs1-xPx nanowires standing on half 3” growth substrates. a, same growth as

Supplementary Figure S4a. b, same growth as Figure 1c in the main paper c, same growth as

Supplementary Figure S4b. Every pixel represents a 0.5 x 0.5 mm square of substrate and thousands of

nanowires. The axes indicate scan distance [mm]. Note that the wavelength scale is different in each panel.

Below each plot is written the approximate phosphor content which was extracted from the EDX

measurements, and the calculated bandgap and equivalent wavelength25. Comparing the measured

wavelengths to the EDX derived ones, we observe that the EDX and PL qualitatively agree, but that

wavelengths calculated from the EDX are slightly below the wavelength of the emitted light. A small

variation in bandgap is observed across the substrate in Supplementary Figure S5c. This is the result of a

small temperature gradient across the substrate during nanowire growth and growth initiation. The

temperature gradient results in a variation in nanowire density and because the P and As diffusion lengths

are different this leads to the observed variation in bandgap. Using positioned growth and improved

substrate temperature calibration this bandgap variation should be removed.

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Supplementary Discussion

Nanowire core growth

For vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth of Ga-assisted nanowires the morphology of the liquid-solid growth

region plays an important role on the relative crystal structure formation probabilities26. Thus, having a

correct V/III ratio is crucial for obtaining perfect zinc-blende nanowire crystals. Since the effective V/III ratio

at the growth region changes throughout the nanowire growth7 it is important to counteract this by being

able to adjust the external group V and III fluxes accordingly. The Ga-assisted axial nanowire core growth

can be divided into 3 growth stages, 1) The initial growth stage: formation of a stable liquid-solid growth

mode takes typically a few hundred nm of growth; 2) quasi steady-state growth of the main part of the

nanowire; and 3) the final growth stage where the droplet is consumed by nucleation from the

supersaturated Ga droplet either a) during cooling after nanowire growth or b) when growing without a Ga

flux. By adjusting the As and P fluxes during part 2 we have been able to obtain essentially a perfect single

crystal zinc-blende structure. Twinnings at the lower section of the nanowire, away from the main photon

absorption areas, and at the top of the nanowire have not yet been attempted removed. The crystal

quality, material composition and bandgap of the nanowires grown, were probed using transmission

electron microscopy (TEM), room temperature photo-luminescence (PL) and energy dispersive x-ray

spectroscopy (EDX). Selected data from different core nanowire growths are shown in Supplementary

Figures S1, S2, S3, S4 and S5.

Ideality factor, series and shunt resistance

We extract the ideality factor, series resistance and shunt resistance by fitting the current-voltage curves to

a simple model schematically shown below. It consists of a diode with ideality factor η, photo current Iph

and a series and shunt resistor (RSe, and RSh). The source-drain current (ISd) versus source-drain voltage (VSd)

can be found via a parameterization of the diode voltage (Vd) using the following three equations:

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0( ) exp 1

( ) ( )

( ) ( )

dd d ph

B

dsd d d d

Sh

dsd d Se d d d

Sh

eVI V I Ik T

VI V I VR

VV V R I V VR

η

= − −

= +

= + +

Figure 3a, b shows fits (solid lines) to the measured IV curves in the dark (blue circles), and illuminated by

global AM1.5 light (red circles). We hereby extract for the passivated (unpassivated) device an ideality

factor of about 2.0 (2.2), and series resistances of 70MΩ (10MΩ). The shunt resistance depends on the light

intensity; under dark conditions it is >100GΩ for both devices.

Supplementary References

25. Vurgaftman, I., Meyer, J. R. & Ram-Mohan, L. R. Band parameters for III–V compound

semiconductors and their alloys. Journal of Applied Physics 89, 5815–5875 (2001).

26. Krogstrup, P. et al. Impact of the Liquid Phase Shape on the Structure of III-V Nanowires.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 125505 (2011).