Multiscale array antireflective coatings for improving efficiencies of solar cells

Multiscale array (MSA) structures are present to reduce the front-side surface reflection loss of solar cells, which consists of nanostructure patterns spanned across the curved surface of micrometer-sized plano-concave cylindrical arrays. The MSAs are fabricated using flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer by simple template replication together with surface modification technique and characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical characterization shows the MSA structure can reduce 3.85% integrated reflectivity of multicrystalline silicon solar cell encapsulated by the flat epoxy resin polymer (ERP) coating. Importantly, the MSA antireflective coating can improve the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of the ERP-encapsulated solar cell from 17.50% to 18.34% and can increase the contact angle of a 2 μL water droplet on the solar cell surface from 110.5° to 153.1°. These improvements have great significance for commercial Si solar cell devices.