Ultrabroadband and Wide-Angle Hybrid Antireflection Coatings With Nanostructures
- Resource Type
- Periodical
- Authors
- Perl, E. E.; Lin, C.-T.; McMahon, W. E.; Friedman, D. J.; Bowers, J. E.
- Source
- IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics IEEE J. Photovoltaics Photovoltaics, IEEE Journal of. 4(3):962-967 May, 2014
- Subject
- Photonics and Electrooptics
Nanostructures
Junctions
Photonic band gap
Nonhomogeneous media
Coatings
Optical refraction
Computer architecture
Biomimetics
optical films
photovoltaic cells
III–V semiconductor materials
- Language
- ISSN
- 2156-3381
2156-3403
Ultrabroadband and wide-angle antireflection coatings (ARCs) are essential to realizing efficiency gains for state-of-the-art multijunction photovoltaic devices. In this study, we examine a novel design that integrates a nanostructured antireflection layer with a multilayer ARC. Using optical models, we find that this hybrid approach can reduce reflected AM1.5D power by 10–50 W/m$^{2}$ over a wide angular range compared to conventional thin-film ARCs. A detailed balance model correlates this to an improvement in absolute cell efficiency of 1–2%. Three different ARC designs are fabricated on indium gallium phosphide, and reflectance is measured to show the benefit of this hybrid approach.