Abstract
Calcium fluoride (CaF2) is deposited via vacuum thermal evaporation on borosilicate glass to produce an anti-reflection coating for use in solar modules. Macleod’s essential simulation is used to optimize the thickness of the CaF2 coating on the glass. Experimentally, a 120 ± 4 nm-thin CaF2 film on glass shows an average increase of ~4% in transmittance and a decrease of ~3.2% in reflectance, respectively, when compared to that of uncoated glass (Un CG), within the wavelength spectrum of approximately 350 to 1100 nm. The electrical PV performance of CaF2-coated glass (CaF2-CG) was analyzed for conventional and lightweight photovoltaic module applications. An improvement in the short-circuit current (Jsc) from 38.13 to 39.07 mA/cm2 and an increase of 2.40% in the efficiency (η) was obtained when CaF2-CG glass was used instead of Un CG in a conventional module. Furthermore, Jsc enhancement from 35.63 to 36.44 mA/cm2 and η improvement of 2.32% was observed when a very thin CaF2-CG was placed between the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and solar cell in a lightweight module.
Highlights
A typical photovoltaic (PV) module can be classified as a conventional or light weight module
In lightweight c-Si PV modules, glass is replaced by acrylic or other polymers [1,2,3] to enable such modules to be used in applications where the light weight of the PV module must be limited
The graph shows that the reflectance increases (a) as we go from a low incidence angle to a(b) and the transmittance decreases high incidence angle, and the resultsFigure are in 2.good agreement with the analysis presented in [30]
Summary
A typical photovoltaic (PV) module can be classified as a conventional or light weight module. A reflection loss of approximately 8% occurs at the front surface of the glass and PMMA because their higher refractive indexes are higher than that of air [4]. This issue can be resolved by using an anti-reflection coating (ARC) material with an ultra-low refractive index (much lower than that of glass) on the front surface of glass. A simple and cost-effective ARC comprises a single layer coating of a material with a refractive index suitable for the desired wavelength spectrum [7]. In this context, optical coatings of fluoride and oxide materials have
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