Broadband anti-reflective properties of grown ZnO nanopyramidal structure on Si substrate via low-temperature electrochemical deposition

Anti-reflection coatings (ARCs) are widely used in various optical and optoelectronic devices to minimize the reflection of light. In this study, we demonstrated the fabrication of ZnO nanopyramidal structures on Si substrate via low-temperature electrochemical deposition. We also investigated the anti-reflection (AR) properties of these nanostructures compared with nanorods and planar ZnO texture on Si substrates. We changed the growth conditions, namely, growth temperature and applied current density, to modify the shape of the ZnO nanorod tips. Nanopyramidal structures with continuously varying refractive index profiles in a single layer were obtained. Reflectance spectra show that the nanopyramid-based texture reduced the reflection of light in a broad spectral range from 380 nm to 1000 nm and is much more effective than nanorod and planar textures. For nanopyramid arrays (NPAs) with average tip diameter of 20 nm, we achieved a 6.5% reflectance over a wide range of wavelengths, which is superior to an optimized single-layer ARC such as SiO2 or TiO2. These textured ZnO ARCs may be applied to a wide variety of photovoltaic devices and other anti-reflection applications with large areas because of their low temperature, fast growth, and simple fabrication.