Improvement of polycrystalline solar cells operation under low solar radiation conditions by using ZnO nanostructured materials

The paper presents a complex process used for obtaining ZnO nanostructures for antireflective coatings. The process is suitable to silicone solar cells and can be used in order to increase their efficiency under low solar radiation, allowing the control of the morphological and optical properties of ZnO nanostructures deposited on glass through ZnO seed layer deposition process. During the research, numerous characterizations have been carried out regarding the ZnO seed layers and nanowires samples like X-ray diffraction analysis and SEM images. Also, development of the spectrophotometric analysis, consisting in the variation of optical reflection and transmission with wavelengths in the range of 400–800 nm, for the ZnO seed layers and nanowires was carried out. The photovoltaic modular system with antireflective coating was tested for different amounts of radiation starting from 100 W/m 2 to 1000 W/m 2 in order to evaluate the efficiency under low solar radiation conditions.