Optimization of textured-dielectric coatings for crystalline-silicon solar cells
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States). Photovoltaic System Components Dept.
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry
The authors report on the optimization of textured-dielectric coatings for reflectance control in crystalline-silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic modules. Textured-dielectric coatings reduce encapsulated-cell reflectance by promoting optical confinement in the module encapsulation; i.e., the textured-dielectric coating randomizes the direction of rays reflected from the dielectric and from the c-Si cell so that many of these reflected rays experience total internal reflection at the glass-air interface. Some important results of this work include the following: the authors demonstrated textured-dielectric coatings (ZnO) deposited by a high-throughput low-cost deposition process; they identified factors important for achieving necessary texture dimensions; they achieved solar-weighted extrinsic reflectances as low as 6% for encapsulated c-Si wafers with optimized textured-ZnO coatings; and they demonstrated improvements in encapsulated cell performance of up to 0.5% absolute compared to encapsulated planar cells with single-layer antireflection coatings.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 257305
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-95-2805C; CONF-960513-13; ON: DE96011841; TRN: AHC29615%%1
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 25. photovoltaic solar energy conference, Washington, DC (United States), 13-17 May 1996; Other Information: PBD: [1996]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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