The Studies of Anti-Reflective (AR) Coatings Effects for Solar Cell by Using Silvaco TCAD Tools

1. Introduction

In 1975, screen printing was first applied to solar cells for the formation of the front and rear contacts replacing expensive vacuum metallization [1]. The encapsulate used in a photovoltaic (PV) module has many requirements. It must be optically transparent, electrically insulating, mechanically compliant, adherent to both glass and cells, and sufficiently robust to withstand 20–30 years in the field. Since the early 1980s, the encapsulate in all PV modules has been ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) [2, 3].

It’s a popular strategy to place Anti-Reflective (AR) coatings on light detecting devices to improve device quantum efficiency. Such coatings rely on destructive interference of reflected waves to reduce overall reflection coefficient of light incident on the detecting device.

Silvaco TCAD [4] provides complete and well integrated simulation software for all solar cell technology. The TCAD modules required for solar cell simulation included: S-Pisces, Blaze, Luminous, Device3D, and Luminous3D.

This article will present the results of ray-trace simulations of conventional silicon PV modules with different AR coating material, EVA and nitride components. We can find the optimal thickness of these materials under the different design and operation parameters.