Microstructured surface design for omnidirectional antireflection coatings on solar cells

Abstract

We recently demonstrated a new process for the formation of partially spherical structures as an omnidirectional antireflection coating (omni-AR). In this paper, we report the simulation results of the angular and spectral dependences of the total reflectivity on various microstructured surfaces based on the rigorous coupled-wave analysis. Close to zero reflection can be achieved in these microstructured surfaces over an extended spectral region for large ranges of light incident angles. The impact of feature size, density, shape, and refractive index has all been investigated. The experimental results agree reasonably well with the theoretical work. Such an omni-AR structure offers an attractive solution to current crystalline silicon solar cells, as well as future thin film, quantum dot, and organic solar cells.