ABSTRACT
Today, the major goal of the scientific community and industrialists is to look for the cheapest power conversion technology. A solar cell is the best method to harvest energy from ambient light. But it is difficult to balance the cost and efficiency of traditional silicon-based solar cells. However, nanowires may play a vital role in fabricating low cost and highly efficient solar cells because of the advantages nanowires possess. Advantages are less reflection, a high surface-to-volume ratio for intense light trapping, improved band gap tuning, facile strain relaxation, and increased defect tolerance. These advantages are not meant to improve the efficiency over the standard limit but achieve that limit at a lower cost. The reduced cost is due to the reduced quantity and quality of the material. This is the reason for the rapid growth in nanowire-based solar cells. Silicon nanowires, ZnO nanowires, and Cu2O nanowires are promising materials to be utilized as solar cell material. This chapter summarizes all types of nanowires, their synthesis methods, their properties, and their application in a solar cell.
