Optimization of broadband omnidirectional antireflection coatings for solar cells

Abstract

Broadband and omnidirectional antireflection coating is a generally effective way to improve solar cell efficiency, because the destructive interference between the reflected and input waves could maximize transmission light in the absorption layer. Several theoretical calculations have been developed to optimize the anti-reflective coating to maximize the average transmittance. However, the solar irradiances of the clear sky spectral direct beam on a receiver plane at different positions and times are variable greatly. Here we report a new theoretical calculation of anti-reflective coating with incident quantum efficiency {\eta}in as evaluation function for practical application. The two-layer and three-layer anti-reflective coatings are optimized over {\lambda} = [300, 1100] nm and {\theta} = [0{\deg}, 90{\deg}] for cities of Quito, Beijing and Moscow. The {\eta}in of two-layer anti-reflective coating increases by 0.26%, 1.37% and 4.24% for these 3 cities, respectively, compared with that other theoretical calculations due to better match between the local actual solar spectrum and quantum efficiency spectrum. Our numerical simulation and comparison data with other optimization methods suggest that this optimization method combining ant colony algorithm method with SPCTRL2 solar spectral irradiance can effectively push the efficient solar cell toward higher quantum efficiency, thus enabling high utilization efficiency of solar irradiance.