Abstract
Because of the Sun's movement across the sky, broadband and omnidirectional light harvesting is a major development in photovoltaic technology. This study reports the fabrication and characterization of flexible-textured polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells, which is one of the simplest and cheapest peel-off processes for fabricating a three-dimensional structure. A cell containing a textured PDMS film enhanced the short-circuit current density from 22.12 to 23.93 mA/cm2 in a simulated one-sun scenario. The omnidirectional antireflection of CIGS solar cells containing various PDMS films is also investigated. This study uses an angle-resolved reflectance spectroscope to investigate the omnidirectional and broadband optical properties of the proposed PDMS film. This improvement in light harvesting is attributable to the scattering of the PDMS film and the gradual refractive index profile between the PDMS microstructures and air. The flexible-textured PDMS film is suitable for creating an antireflective coating for a diverse range of photovoltaic devices.
Highlights
Solar energy is the most renewable and secure energy among existing energy sources
To characterize the omnidirectional optical performance of the PDMS film, it was layered on CIGS solar cells and the angle-dependent reflectance of the cells was measured with a 15cmradius integrating sphere to collect the scattered photons, a broadband 300W Xenon lamp and analyzed by a spectrometer
Compared with the bare cell, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the CIGS solar cell possessing a textured PDMS film revealed an enhanced photoresponse for wavelengths ranging from 400 to 1,000 nm, which is consistent with the reduced reflectance at the same wavelength range
Summary
Solar energy is the most renewable and secure energy among existing energy sources. Because of the global warming effect and energy crisis, solar energy has become a major topic of research in recent years. The biomimetic moth-eye structures exhibit excellent broadband and omnidirectional antireflection characteristics, but the fabrication processes are not suitable for mass production of nanostructures on large-area solar cells and the process-induced surfacerecombination defects degrade the device performance [21,22,23]. The PDMS film provides a refractive index gradient to reduce Fresnel reflection loss as an antireflection layer. The results of CIGS solar cells to which both types of antireflection layers had been applied were compared with cells possessing only a bare layer. The power conversion efficiency of the CIGS solar cell possessing the PDMS film can be effectively improved compared to a bare solar cell because of the enhanced antireflective (AR) properties
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