Abstract
The low-cost chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique is used to prepare CBD-ZnS films as antireflective (AR) coating for multicrystalline silicon solar cells. The uniformity of CBD-ZnS film on large area of textured multicrystalline silicon surface is the major challenge of CBD technique. In the present work, attempts have been made for the first time to improve the rate of deposition and uniformity of deposited film by controlling film stoichiometry and refractive index and also to minimize reflection loss by proper optimization of molar percentage of different chemical constituents and deposition conditions. Reasonable values of film deposition rate (12.13 Å′/min.), good film uniformity (standard deviation <1), and refractive index (2.35) along with a low percentage of average reflection (6-7%) on a textured mc-Si surface are achieved with proper optimization of ZnS bath. 12.24% efficiency on large area (125 mm × 125 mm) multicrystalline silicon solar cells with CBD-ZnS antireflection coating has been successfully fabricated. The viability of low-cost CBD-ZnS antireflection coating on large area multicrystalline silicon solar cell in the industrial production level is emphasized.
Highlights
Pyramid type surface texturing is a well established process used for monocrystalline silicon solar cell.Unlike monocrystalline silicon (c-Si),multicrystalline silicon can exhibit poor surface texturing due to its different grains and grain boundaries
We have previously reported on the chemical bath deposition of zinc sulfide (ZnS) thin films in the context of their application as an antireflection coating on monocrystalline silicon solar
This paper reports the key factors involved in proper optimization of chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique such as composition of chemical constituents, stoichiometry and refractive index of the deposited film, and deposition time to form uniform and reproducible viable ZnS antireflection coating in batch process by CBD on commercial multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) silicon solar cells
Summary
Pyramid type surface texturing is a well established process used for monocrystalline silicon solar cell.Unlike monocrystalline silicon (c-Si),multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) can exhibit poor surface texturing due to its different grains and grain boundaries. ZnS film can be used as a reflector and dielectric filter due to its high value of refractive index as well as high transmittance in visible region [3, 4] It is used as buffer layers in CuInSeand CuGaSe2-based solar cells, respectively [5, 6]. The precipitate formation in the bulk of solution is an inherent problem in CBD technique This normally results in unnecessary precipitation and loss of materials during CBD-ZnS film deposition on semiconductor or glass substrate and hampers the uniformity of the deposited film. This paper reports the key factors involved in proper optimization of CBD technique such as composition of chemical constituents, stoichiometry and refractive index of the deposited film, and deposition time to form uniform and reproducible viable ZnS antireflection coating in batch process by CBD on commercial mc-Si silicon solar cells
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