Enhancing the performance of solar cell by using different layer of anti-reflective coating / Tengku Shahira Alyssa Tengku Abdul Rashid

The rising of renewable energy is booming its way to our country’s power generation field. This is because of the ample sunshine throughout the year, which makes it very appealing for the development of solar energy. However, reflectivity causes solar cell to lose potential photons to be confined. Hence, the aim of this work is to enhance the performance of solar cell by using different layer of anti-reflective coating. In this work, Gallium Arsenide was used as the solar cell substrate as it produces a better outcome compared to a Silicon solar cell. Materials such as SiO2 , Si3N4 and SiO2 /Si3N4 are used as the layers of anti-reflective coating. By using SILVACO TCAD tool, the solar cell structure was designed and modelled with ATHENA software. Meanwhile, ATLAS was utilize to simulate the electrical and optical properties such as the External Quantum Efficiency (EQE), I-V characteristic and spectral response, which were observed. The planar GaAs solar cell with anti-reflective coating of SiO2 , Si3N4 and SiO2 /Si3N4 showed efficiency at 9.38%, 10.88% and 10.68%, respectively. For porous structure, SiO2 , Si3N4 and SiO2 /Si3N4 layers exhibits 9.32%, 10.75% and 10.31%, respectively in terms of efficiency. In conclusion, Si3N4 material exhibits excellent efficiency to be used as an anti-reflective coating on GaAs solar cell.