Silicon nitride as antireflection coating to enhance the conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells

Authors: RAJINDER SHARMA

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 (Si₃N₄) 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 Si₃N₄ using the transfer matrix method. Double layer antireflection coating (DLARC) of Si₃N₄ 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/cm² 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.

Keywords: Antireflection coating, PC1D, solar cell, reflectance, external quantum efficiency, conversion efficiency

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