Surfactant Templated Silica Surfaces as UV Scratch and Dust Resistant Antireflective Coating for Improved Solar Cell Performance

Abstract

Renewable energy resources get great attention from the modern scientific newlinecommunity, because of the high energy demand. Solar energy is the most promising form newlineof renewable energy and is the most sustainable solution to the energy crisis all over the newlineworld. Among the various solar energy harvesters photovoltaic devices are appraised as newlinethe most suitable solar energy harvester. The efficiency of solar cell highly depends on the newlineamount of radiation reached on the active region of solar cell and was reduced by the newlinereflection at the interfaces. Antireflection coating plays a crucial role in many optical newlinedevices by minimizing the reflection. Along with antireflection property, a coating must newlineguarantee durability and self-cleaning property to maintain the efficiency of a solar cell for newlinelong term application. Here in this work silica based antireflection coatings were prepared newlineusing various silanes (TEOS, VTES, MTMS, MTES, and VTMS) along with surfactant newlinetemplate Pluronic F-127. The prepared coatings were characterized by different techniques newlinesuch as, UV-Visible spectrophotometer, Ellipsometry, FESEM, EDX, BET, FTIR, TGA, newlineLaser Profilometry and Water contact angle analysis to evaluate the transmittance, newlinerefractive index, morphology, elemental composition, porosity, molecular vibrations, newlinethermal stability, surface roughness and wettability of the coating respectively. The newlinedurability of the coating was analyzed by pencil scratch test and UV-irradiation stability. newlineThe transmittance of the prepared coatings was compared with the transmittance newlinecalculated using solar insolation reading from Pyranometer using the standard ASTM E newline1918-97. The water contact angle of the prepared coatings was improved by surface newlinetreatment using 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorooctyltrichlorosilane (PFOTS). Further, The newlinephotovoltaic performance of the AR coating as a cover glass of a photovoltaic module was newlineevaluated by using commercially available polycrystalline silicon solar cell under newlinesimulated 1000W/m2 illumination (AM 1.5G) in air.