Abstract
The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of single and double layer antireflection coating (ARC) on the performance of silicon solar cells. In this regard, various previous works on single and double layer ARCs have been consulted. Silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) has been used as ARC material because of its varying refractive index (1.8-3.0). Numerical calculations have been performed to obtain the reflectance for single and double layer Si 3 N 4 using the transfer matrix method. Double layer antireflection coating (DLARC) of Si 3 N 4 is found to have significant advantages over single layer antireflection coating (SLARC). Calculated reflectances have been further used in the PC1D simulator as external reflectance files to study the performance of a silicon solar cell. As a result of the simulation, the reflectance is found to reduce from >30% to <2% with short circuit current of 3.86 mA/cm 2 and conversion efficiency of 20.22% for DLARC. Results obtained for DLARC were further compared with a reference cell (without ARC), a cell with SLARC, and a cell with zero reflectance on the front surface.
Highlights
The main challenge regarding the performance of solar cells is reflection loss
The reflectance calculated above using transfer matrix method (TMM) has been used in the PC1D simulator to study the performance of the silicon solar cell
It is observed that the single layer antireflection coating (SLARC) reduces reflectance, which in turn increases the EQE as well as short circuit current due to increase in the absorption of photons from incident light
Summary
The main challenge regarding the performance of solar cells is reflection loss. When sunlight illuminates the front surface of a solar cell, some part of the light energy is transmitted into the cell and gets converted into electrical energy, whereas some part reflects from the front surface. In order to reduce the loss due to reflectance on the silicon surface, different methods have been used. Surface texturing, and antireflection coatings (ARCs) are among the most widely used to reduce the loss due to reflection [1,2,3,4]. ARCs are of great importance to improve the efficiency of solar cells by reducing the loss due to reflection [5,6,7,8,9]. Many works have been reported on ARCs with different materials such as MgF 2 /SiNx by Dhungel et al [11], SiO 2 /TiO 2 by Lien et al [12], Al 2 O 3 /TiO 2 by Bahrami et al [13], MgF 2 /Ti 2 O 3 by Medhat et al [14], and SiNx/SiNx by Beye et al [15]
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