Abstract
In this paper, a zinc oxide (ZnO) nanotube, fabricated by the hydrothermal growth method on triple-junction (T-J) solar cell devices to enhance efficiency, is investigated. Compared to those of bare T-J solar cells (without antireflection (AR) coating) and solar cells with Si3N4 AR coatings, the experimental results show that the T-J solar cells, which use a ZnO nanotube as an AR coating, have the lowest reflectance in the short wavelength spectrum. The ZnO nanotube has the lowest light reflection among all experimental samples, especially in the range of 350 to 500 nm from ultraviolet (UV) to visible light. It was found that a ZnO nanotube can enhance the conversion efficiency by 4.9%, compared with a conventional T-J solar cell. The Si3N4 AR coatings also enhance the conversion efficiency by 3.2%.The results show that a cell with ZnO nanotube coating could greatly improve solar cell performances.
Highlights
In solar power technologies, the III-V solar cell is so far the commercial solar cell with the highest efficiency
The zinc oxide (ZnO) nanotube with interest stemming from the facile synthesis with aligned and uniform ZnO nanotube arrays by using lowtemperature hydrothermal methods was tried on the solar cells, without degrading the properties of the solar cells [16]
A ZnO nanotube grown on triple-junction (T-J) solar cell devices by the hydrothermal growth method to enhance efficiency is investigated
Summary
The III-V solar cell is so far the commercial solar cell with the highest efficiency. It is expected that III-V solar cell will play an important role in the future high-efficiency and low-cost photovoltaic cell industry [1]. For high-performance multijunction solar cells, the antireflection plays an important role because it can reduce about 30% of the light absorption due to the reflection between the interface of the air and top cell. The high temperatures required for the CVD process degrade the characteristics of the solar cells. The main motivation behind this study is the fact that nanostructures will act as a second ARC layer with an effective refractive index so that the refractive index of the total structure will perform as a double-layer AR coating layer. The optical and electrical properties ofthe III-V solar cells with the above-proposed double-layer AR coating in this study are measured and compared
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