Determinantal study on the thickness of graphene oxide as ARC layer for silicon solar cells using: A simulation approach

This work describes the thickness optimization of graphene oxide (GO) as an antireflection coating (ARC) layer using a low-cost deposition process and validates the experimental results by a simulation study. The optimization of GO thickness was carried out by varying the speed of the spin coating and characterized by various characterization tools. It was found that GO ARC of thickness 80 nm was optimized having the lowest average reflectance of ∼7.69% which was lowered to other GO thicknesses. In a simulation study, the different GO thicknesses were selected as input parameters to explore the highest photovoltaic performances of Si solar cells. The Si solar cell with the GO thickness of 80 nm expressed the highest short-circuit current (Isc = 3.42 A), open-circuit voltage (Voc = 0.653 V), power conversion efficiency (18.78%), and FF (83.74%). The photovoltaic (PV) parameters such as Isc, Voc, FF, efficiency, and sheet resistance were characterized by varying the thickness of ARC layer at the junction depth range from 0.1 μm to 0.5 μm for Si solar cells. It was been found that the optimized thickness (80 nm) of the GO ARC layer exhibited high performance, photocurrent, external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 95%, and high generation of charge carriers. This simulation on optimizing the GO thickness for Si solar cells would provide the utilization of low-cost GO ARC for the development of high-performance Si solar cells. •Low-cost graphene oxide (GO) was applied as antireflection layer over Si solar cells.•Thickness of GO ARC layer was optimized by controlling the spinning speed.•Optimized 80 nm GO thickness exhibited the lowest average reflectance of 7.69%.•A model was designed using PC1D simulation to validate the experimental results.•High power conversion efficiency of ∼18.78% achieved for solar cells with 80 nm GO ARC layer.