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Broadband Low Reflection Surfaces with Silicon Nanopillar Hexagonal Arrays for Energy Harvesting in Photovoltaics

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Abstract

In this study, optimization of the silicon nanopillar arrays and thin films coated on silicon substrate has been investigated in order to minimize the optical reflection loss from the silicon substrate surface. Nanopillars’s filling ratio, pillar height, pillars diameter, sidewall incline angle, and step coverage with dielectric thin film thickness are systematically optimized together for the first time with these type of nanostructures. Full-field Finite Difference Time Domain method is used to simulate electro-magnetic fields and calculate the reflection from the modified nanostructured substrate surfaces in 400-1100 nm spectral range. Optimization recipe is clearly presented and this is not only useful for hexagonal arrays but also for regular arrays of nanopillars in general. We also further decrease the reflection by using step coverage concept which is the result of nonconformal coating on steps and trenches of thin films. We obtained approximately 2% of weighted average reflection in the 400-1100 nm range for perpendicular incident solar radiation which is one of the best results reported for this type of nanostructured surfaces in the literature.

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Data Availability

The datasets used in the plots and they were already presented in the manuscript. However, the raw data used to generate the figures in the manuscript are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by TUBİTAK ARDEB 1001 project under project number 219M280. Computing resources were supported by AGÜ (Abdullah Gul University). I would like to thank my colleagues Evren Mutlugün and Mehmet Şahin for valuable discussions on the subject.

Funding

This work was supported by Tubitak 1001 program under the grant number 219M280.

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  1. Department of Nanotechnology Engineering, Abdullah Gul University, Kayseri, Turkey

    Turgut Tut

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Material preparation, data collection and analysis and manuscript writing were performed by Turgut TUT.

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Tut, T. Broadband Low Reflection Surfaces with Silicon Nanopillar Hexagonal Arrays for Energy Harvesting in Photovoltaics. Silicon 14, 12781–12788 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-01977-0

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