Construction of interconnected nanostructures via linear chains silica for antireflective coatings in solar cell

Abstract

Solar cells play a pivotal role in increasing the application of solar energy, offering an innovative solution to address the energy crisis. However, the loss of light transmittance through solar cell glass results in the decrease of power conversion efficiency. Base-catalyzed silica antireflection coating can effectively improve light transmittance due to its porous structure, but mechanical fragility limits their applications. To enhance the strength of these coatings, herein we employed two strategies, in-situ and ex-situ catalysis, introducing the acid-catalyzed silica chains to bind the silica nanoparticles and form an interconnected nanostructure. Different combination modes of in/ex-situ silica generate two distinct nanostructures, including nanoparticles tightly connected by short chains or wrapped by long chains. Compared to the ex-situ catalyzed coatings, the in-situ catalyzed coatings have greater porosity, reactivity and mechanical property. When the silica linear chain accounts for 30 %, in-situ catalyzed coatings show an average transmission of more than 96.4 %, representing a 6.5 % improvement over glass plate, and the pencil hardness reaches 3H, meeting the requirements of industrial applications. After the hydrophobic treatment, the water contact angle exceeds 130°, exhibiting excellent self-cleaning performance. It is believed that the facile and scalable in-situ catalyzed AR coatings have great application potential.