Abstract
Porous silica anti-reflection (AR) films are of importance in solar cells’ photon harvest. However, the usual utilized method to fabricate AR films is the two-step method since the formation of porous silica NPs (first step) and silica coating sol (second step) always require chemical systems at distinct pH values. To reduce the complexity of the process, we choose cationic emulsion as an approach to produce the porosity and propose a convenient one-step route to get high-performance antireflective films. A single layer SiO2 anti-reflective (AR) film with high optical transmittance up to 97.5% at 740 nm was fabricated from composite sol that was made from cationic emulsion nanolatex and tetraethylorthosilicate under acid catalysis condition. After calcination, the transmittance of AR coated glasses still held the transmittance of 96% at 550 nm. Composited with SiO2, Al2O3, or TiO2 sol binders, the transmittance of AR coated glasses could be recovered as high as 97.9% at 650 nm and the pencil hardness was further strengthened up to 6H. The composite sol can keep stable at least one month at ambient temperature without any visible precipitation. Therefore, the proposed method is promising for developing high-performance AR films effectively and economically.
Highlights
Porous silica anti-reflection (AR) films are of importance in solar cells’ photon harvest
There are two strategies can be utilized for Single-layer antireflective (SLAR) films to get high optical transmittances: (1) to fabricate a SLAR film with an optical thickness equal to 1/4 wavelength; (2) to prepare it with a refractive index nc = (n0n1)1/2, where n0 and n1 are the refractive indices of the air and the substrate, respectively[3]
Mizoshita et al.[4] reported a sol–gel SLAR film with outstanding AR performances by compositing mesoporous silica nano-spheres with hexamethyldisilazane (HDMS) alkylated surface and mesoporous silicon sol binders produced by polyethylene oxide–polypropylene oxide–polyethylene oxide (P123) block copolymer templates
Summary
Porous silica anti-reflection (AR) films are of importance in solar cells’ photon harvest. In practical experiments, the silica nanoparticle or hollow spheres usually coming from ammonia catalysis reaction is so hard to be applied in the sol–gel coating industry Because they will cause the acid silica sol (as a kind of binder) tuning to a semi-solid condition and induce SLAR films with poor mechanical properties[7]. A sol containing silica hollow spheres and an emulsion containing nano cationic polymer are usually chemically compatible under acid condition, so they are easy to be composited into a stabile SLAR film sol. Since most of the emulsion is polymerized from organic monomers, it can be almost completely decomposed at high temperature (450–750 °C), cumbersome steps of removing templates in traditional preparation process are omitted This method can be conducted and exhibit a huge practical application prospect in outdoor solar panels
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