Broadband Angle-Independent Antireflection Coatings On Nanostructured Light Trapping Solar Cells

Abstract

Backscattering from nanostructured surfaces greatly diminishes the efficacy of light trapping solar cells. While the analytical design of broadband, angle-independent antireflection coatings on nanostructured surfaces proved inefficient, numerical optimization proves a viable alternative. Here, we numerically design and experimentally verify the performance of single and bilayer antireflection coatings on a 2D hexagonal diffractive light trapping pattern on crystalline silicon substrates. Three well-known antireflection coatings, aluminum oxide, silicon nitride, and silicon oxide, which also double as high-quality surface passivation materials, are studied in the 400-1000 nm band. By varying thickness and conformity, the optimal parameters that minimize the broadband total reflectance (specular and scattering) from the nanostructured surface are obtained. The design results in a single-layer antireflection coating with normal-angle wavelength-integrated reflectance below 4% and a bilayer antireflection coating demonstrating reflection down to 1.5%. We show experimentally an angle-averaged reflectance of ∼5.2% up to 60° incident angle from the optimized bilayer antireflection-coated nanostructured surface, paving the path toward practical implementation of the light trapping solar cells.

Publication Date

3-22-2018

Publication Title

Physical Review Materials

Volume

2

Issue

3

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.035201

Socpus ID

85059575558 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85059575558

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