Anti-reflective nanocomposite based coating for crystalline silicon solar cells with noticeable significance

Novel Diamond-like Nanocomposite (DLN) thin film as Anti-Reflective Nanocomposite Based (ARNAB) coating for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell is the main objective of this paper. The DLN film was deposited by plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition (PACVD) method and characterized by Fourier transform infrared, field emission scanning electron microscope, and high resolution transmission emission microscope. Results show that c-Si3N4 and c-SiC nanoparticle (3–5 nm) were embedded in a-C:H matrix, and they were interpenetrated by Si-C bonding, i.e., typical DLN structure. The optical properties of the film were investigated by UV-VIS-near-infrared and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The performance of ARNAB coating was evaluated by measuring the reflectance, external quantum efficiency (EQE), and conversion efficiency. The solar weighted average reflection from textured c-Si was reduced to 2.25% in wavelength range 300 nm–1100 nm, and more than 90% EQE of the solar cell was achieved within the broad wavelength range 560 nm–870 nm. The result has been also compared with conventional silicon nitride anti-reflection coating (ARC). Finally, 0.8% absolute increased of efficiency was achieved with ARNAB layer in comparison with silicon nitride AR coating. The ARNAB thin film has a great potential to be used as ARC for silicon based solar cell.