Analysis of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride anti reflection coating for silicon solar cell / Hairil Huzairi Abd Hamid

Photovoltaic is a renewable energy technology that converts the sunlight directly into electricity through a photovoltaic (PVs) cell, commonly called a solar cell. Basically, they are made from semiconductor material such as silicon, gallium arsenide, amorphous and many more semiconductors. Photovoltaic energy has become popular nowadays because of its ability to provide nearly permanent, uninterrupted power. What is more interesting, there is no operating cost. However, disadvantage lie in the low power per unit area of sunlight, which necessitates a large area of arrays. The performance of a photovoltaic array is dependent upon the intensity of the sunlight and also the material used for the solar cell device itself. Two main parameters in solar cell technology are the contact to the cell and the use of anti-reflective coating (ARCs), which are of capital importance in the improvement of the efficiency of semiconductor solar cells. However, this research gives the focus on the use of antireflective coating (ARCs) in attaining high efficiency of solar cell. In this research, the analysis of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride for single and double layer thin film coatings on the reflectance spectrum of silicon surfaces has been investigate. The research has been carried out using ATLAS device simulator by Silvaco. This research is focusing to obtained higher efficiency and lower reflectance by different wavelength, thickness and refractive index. The material used for AR coating also important to give the lowest reflection in improving the efficiency. The ratio of available photocurrent is often known as external quantum efficiency. The source photocurrent is the amount of current generated by the light source and the available photocurrent is the amount of the current absorbed by semiconductor. By comparing the plot of spectrum response and the reflectance of analysis with and without AR coating, solar cell with ARC is more efficient. With this analysis it was concluded that the effect of the wavelength, refractive index and the thickness of the material will be affected to the efficiency and the reflectance coating