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Selection of materials and optimization of antireflection coatings for silicon solar cells using Sentaurus TCAD

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Abstract

In this article, antireflection coatings (ARC) were designed for silicon-based solar cells, and their corresponding performance parameters were evaluated using TCAD (Technology computer-aided design) Sentaurus. The optical propagation and absorption of the device were considered using the transfer matrix method (TMM) and complex refractive index model. Simulation results confirmed that the reflectance for single-layer ARC (SLARC) could be reduced to zero only at a single wavelength. A much broader low-reflectance region is achieved using double-layer antireflection coatings (DLARC). This reduction in reflectance of visible light suggested better utilization of the incident solar radiation. The highest efficiency of 14.12% was achieved for DLARC (CaF2/TiO2)-based devices when compared to 10.51% for SLARC (ZnO) and 9.21% for no ARC condition. The effects on open-circuit voltage (VOC), short-circuit current density (Jsc), reflection, external quantum efficiency (EOE), and photovoltaic efficiency (\(\eta \%\)) due to different ARCs are presented in this work for silicon-based solar cells.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge MHRD, Govt of India, for the financial support to Anterdipan Singh in the form of PMRF fellowship and Rohan Ghosh for MSR fellowship. We also acknowledge Professor Gaurav Trivedi (EEE, IIT Guwahati) for providing access to Sentaurus TCAD.

Funding

No external funding was received for this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Anterdipan Singh & Pratima Agarwal

  2. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Rohan Ghosh & Pratima Agarwal

Authors
  1. Anterdipan Singh
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  2. Rohan Ghosh
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  3. Pratima Agarwal
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Contributions

AS contributed to conceptualization, methodology, simulation, writing—original draft, and editing. RG contributed to simulation, review, and editing, and PA contributed to supervision, conceptualization, and validation—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Pratima Agarwal.

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Singh, A., Ghosh, R. & Agarwal, P. Selection of materials and optimization of antireflection coatings for silicon solar cells using Sentaurus TCAD. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1235 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10612-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10612-6

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