Study about the effect of antireflection coating stacks (TiO2–SiO2/SiO2/SiNx) on the performances of multicrystalline silicon solar cells under the encapsulation condition

Abstract Appropriate antireflection coating (ARC) stacks are known for their excellent antireflection performances. In this paper, TiO2–SiO2/SiO2/SiNx ARC stacks in multicrystalline silicon (Mc-Si) solar cells were designed and prepared to improve the performances of the cells under the encapsulation condition. To this end, the parameters of each ARC were firstly calculated and optimized by matrix method and SunSolve™. The SiNx and SiO2 ARCs were deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The TiO2–SiO2 was effectively applied as ARCs by sol-gel method. The as-obtained ARC stacks were characterized by various analytical methods and their applications on Mc-Si solar cells were evaluated. The microstructures show that the as-obtained ARC stacks have good uniformity and TiO2–SiO2 exists in amorphous form. The TiO2–SiO2/SiO2/SiNx ARC stacks on Mc-Si solar cells has excellent light transmission, exhibiting the low weighted average reflectivity of 5.88% in the wavelength range of 300–1200 nm under encapsulation conditions. The as-obtained ARC stacks significantly enhanced the photovoltaic performances of Mc-Si solar cells under encapsulation conditions, for example, achieving an average practical efficiency of 16.27%. New and effective TiO2–SiO2/SiO2/SiNx ARC stacks would offer a promising possibility for the production of high-performance Mc-Si solar cells.