Single-layer and double-layer coating using meta-material for increased transmission for solar cell and independent from the incident angle

Abstract EN

Solar cells efficiency is one of the issues that solar system engineers usually try to enhance to maximize the power harvested from the solar system.

One of the ways that tackles this issue is the use of anti-reflection coating on the solar cells to minimize the reflection and maximize the transmission of the sun light to the solar system.

Light reflection and transmission dependence of many factors and one of them is the angle of incident of the light on the solar system.

The angle of incident varies during the day; generally it varies between 0o and 90o.

Therefore, the problem in hand is how to maximize transmission for the whole day, from sunrise to sunset.

In this paper, the use of meta-materials as antireflection coating is investigated.

Meta-materials are artificial materials engineered to provide properties which are not available in nature.

Meta-materials have negative index of refraction.

Single-layer and double-layer systems are designed by using meta-material as anti-reflection thin film coating for solar cell.

The single-layer system gave up to 0.3% reflection and 99.7% transmission.

The double layer system gave up to 0.1% reflection and 99.9% transmission.

Both systems that are studied operate in the visible light range.

The low reflection is observed over a full range of angle of incidents between 0o and 90o.

The superiority of this system over the existing ones is that using the existing antireflection system leads to the low reflectance is achieved at certain angle of incident only.

However, the use of meta-material gave extraordinary result that low reflectance is independent of the angle of incident.