Strain effects on optoelectronic characteristics of laterally arrayed silicon nanowires on a flexible substrate

In this study, we array n-type silicon nanowires (SiNWs) on a flexible plastic substrate and investigate the effects of tensile strain on the optoelectronic characteristics of the laterally arrayed SiNWs under the illumination of 633-nm-wavelength light in air at room temperature. The unstrained SiNW array has an efficiency of approximately 5.3 A/W at a bias voltage of 5 V. When the plastic substrate suffers from a tensile strain of up to 2.2% in parallel to the channels of SiNWs, dark current and photocurrent increase markedly owing to the change in their band structure caused by the tensile strain.