Low cost sol-gel derived SiC-SiO ₂ nanocomposite as anti reflection layer for enhanced performance of crystalline silicon solar cells

This paper describes the preparation, characterizations and the antireflection (AR) coating application in crystalline silicon solar cells of sol-gel derived SiC-SiO ₂ nanocomposite. The prepared SiC-SiO ₂ nanocomposite was effectively applied as AR layer on p-type Si-wafer via two step processes, where the sol-gel of precursor solution was first coated on p-type Si-wafer using spin coating at 2000 rpm and then subjected to annealing at 450 °C for 1 h. The crystalline, and structural observations revealed the existence of SiC and SiO ₂ phases, which noticeably confirmed the formation of SiC-SiO ₂ nanocomposite. The SiC-SiO ₂ layer on Si solar cells was found to be an excellent AR coating, exhibiting the low reflectance of 7.08% at wavelengths ranging from 400 to 1000 nm. The fabricated crystalline Si solar cell with SiC-SiO ₂ nanocomposite AR coating showed comparable power conversion efficiency of 16.99% to the conventional Si _x N _x AR coated Si solar cell. New and effective sol-gel derived SiC-SiO ₂ AR layer would offer a promising technique to produce high performance Si solar cells with low-cost.