Performance Enhancement of Solar Cell by Incorporating Bilayer RGO‐ITO Smart Conducting Antireflection Coating

• Main Authors: Anupam Nandi, Sukanta Dhar, Sanhita Majumdar, Hiranmay Saha, Syed Minhaz Hossain
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019-08-01
• Series: Global Challenges
• Subjects: bilayers; graphene; ITO; antireflection coatings; solar cells
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201800109

Abstract Multilayered graphene deposited on a flat resistive surface has twofold benefits. Less electronic scattering reduces the sheet resistance of the combined bilayer and high photon scattering through the unavoidable wrinkles on the chemically synthesized graphene layer leads to decreased effective reflection. In this paper, wet‐chemically‐synthesized reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has been employed on the top of the indium‐doped tin‐oxide (ITO) layer. The ITO layer of optimized thickness has been deposited as an alternative antireflection coating (ARC) on a p/n junction based crystalline silicon solar cell with standard textured surface. Variation in spectral response has been studied experimentally for different thickness and surface coverage of RGO on ITO. The combined effect of reduced sheet resistance due to high surface conductivity and increased photon injection efficiency due to scattering from the wrinkles of RGO results in significant improvement in the performance of the solar cell. By employing optimum thickness of RGO, percentage enhancements of about 18% and 10%, respectively, in efficiency and short‐circuit current density have been achieved over the baseline cell structure. RGO also exhibits an additional benefit as a moisture repelling layer.