Dandelion-shaped nanostructures for enhancing omnidirectional photovoltaic performance

Abstract

Broadband and omnidirectional light harvesting is important in photovoltaic technology because of its wide spectral range of radiation and the sun's movement. This study reports the fabrication and characterization of zinc oxide (ZnO) dandelions on Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells. The fabrication of dandelions involves the combination of self-assembled polystyrene (PS) nanospheres and the hydrothermal method, which is one of the simplest and cheapest methods of fabricating a three-dimensional, closely packed periodic structure. This study also investigates the optimization on dimension of the PS nanospheres using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) method. This study uses an angle-resolved reflectance spectroscope and a homemade rotatable photo I-V measurement to investigate the omnidirectional and broadband antireflections of the proposed dandelion structure. Under a simulated one-sun condition and a light incident angle of up to 60°, cells with ZnO dandelions arrays enhanced the short-circuit current density by 31.87%. Consequently, ZnO dandelions are suitable for creating an omnidirectionally antireflective coating for photovoltaic devices.

Device Modeling of the Performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se2Solar Cells with V-Shaped Bandgap Profiles

“…The APSYS simulation program can deal with electrical properties by solving several interwoven equations including the basic Poisson's equation, drift-diffusion equations, photon rate equation, and scalar wave equation. To investigate the effect of bandgap grading in a CIGS solar cell, physical parameters of CIGS solar cells needed for electrical modeling are obtained from measurements and earlier literatures to construct the accurate model [12][13][14]. Table 1 lists the parameters used in the numerical model.…”

Influence of photovoltaic angle-dependence on overall power output for fixed building integrated configurations

“…In this case, TPVs can be considered for siding, windows, and skylights, which normally have fixed structures [14]. Recently, TPV designs with enhanced angle-dependence were demonstrated, leading to the improvements in responsivity by as much as 50% at particular oblique angles with nearly identical performance at normal incidence [15][16][17]; the improvements were achieved by considering and optimizing layer structures for non-normal incidence.…”

Enhancing the Optical Behavior of Glass Surface by Creation of Microstructures in Single‐Step Hydrothermal Wet Etching

“…Highly reflective glass finds numerous applications in optical and opto‐electronic devices, optical lenses, displays, and as substrates for CdTe/CIGS based solar cells . It is widely employed as a cover glass for photovoltaic solar cell due to high transparency, excellent stability against water and UV radiation, low thermal expansion coefficient and cost effectiveness .…”

“…fabricated a multilayer coating (SiO 2 /TiO 2 /SiO 2 –TiO 2 ) on glass substrate which revealed an average transmittance of 98.4% in the visible region by involving complex deposition process and optimization of film thickness . Conventional methods such as etching,, spin coating, direct dip coating, layer‐by‐layer dip‐coating, spray coating and vapour deposition are used to modify the glass surfaces for desired properties. Of all these methods, etching is relatively a simple, inexpensive and direct technique to obtain antireflective surface and scalable to integrate with glass‐manufacturing line.…”

“…Of all these methods, etching is relatively a simple, inexpensive and direct technique to obtain antireflective surface and scalable to integrate with glass‐manufacturing line. Most commonly used etchants are either alkali (NaOH, KOH) or acids (H 2 SiF 6 , AlCl 3 , HF) which poses problem of disposal into waste and therefore the etching industries are constantly looking for the alternative solutions ,. Since, water is an excellent universal solvent which serves as a medium for most biological and chemical reactions and also act as an etching medium .…”