A facile strategy to prepare antireflection coatings with high transmittance and improved mechanical stability and application in crystalline silicon solar modules

Transparent materials with a low refraction index are used to eliminate an important energy loss in photovoltaic conversion which is caused by the Frensenl reflection at the air-substrate interface of a solar cell. Herein, we prepared the silica antireflection coating (AR) with low index by an acid-base-catalyzed sol-gel approach. The application of the AR coating can efficiently reduce the light reflection and which exhibits a maximum transmittance of T max  = 99.4% at visible wavelengths from 380 nm to 800 nm. When the AR coating was applied to the silicon modules, leading to a significant efficiency enhancement from 16.18% to 16.83%. In addition, the AR coatings feature good adhesion and exhibit satisfactory mechanical stability under outdoor conditions. These results indicate a significant development for AR coatings applied in silicon modules as well as present a promising alternative to reduce the cost of energy. The AR film prepared in this paper has both high transmittance and abrasion resistance. The current density of solar modules has been significantly improved, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency has increased by 4%.