Light trapping in single coupled silicon nanowires for photovoltaic applications

We propose a pair of coupled nanowires (PCNWs) and examine light trapping in PCNWs with various diameters based on the finite-difference time-domain simulation. We demonstrated that light absorption in PCNWs could be significantly tuned via engineering light coupling mainly due to the reshaped and strengthened leaky mode resonances. The photocurrent of PCNWs is remarkably enhanced by 24.1% than a pair of uncoupled NWs and 28.2% than bare NW. This work provides a practical approach to increase light absorption based on the light-coupled resonant structures.