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    Self-Cleaned Photonic-Enhanced Solar Cells with Nanostructured Parylene-C

    Year: 2020

    Journal: Adv. Mater. Interfaces, Volume 7, AUG

    Authors: Centeno, P; Alexandre, MF; Chapa, M; Pinto, JV; Deuermeier, J; Mateus, T; Fortunato, E; Martins, R; Aguas, H; Mendes, MJ

    Organizations: FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme [UID/CTM/50025/2019, PTDC/NAN-OPT/28430/2017, PTDC/NAN-OPT/28837/2017, PTDC/EAM-PEC/29905/2017]; FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology)Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [UID/CTM/50025/2019, PTDC/NAN-OPT/28430/2017, PTDC/NAN-OPT/28837/2017, PTDC/EAM-PEC/29905/2017]; FCTPortuguese Foundation for Science and TechnologyEuropean Commission [SFRH/BD/148078/2019]

    Keywords: colloidal-lithography; light management; photovoltaics; self-cleaning; superhydrophobicity

    Photonic front-coatings with self-cleaning properties are presented as means to enhance the efficiency and outdoor performance of thin-film solar cells, via optical enhancement while simultaneously minimizing soiling-related losses. This is achieved by structuring parylene-C transparent encapsulants using a low-cost and highly-scalable colloidal-lithography methodology. As a result, superhydrophobic surfaces with broadband light-trapping properties are developed. The optimized parylene coatings show remarkably high water contact angles of up to 165.6 degrees and extremely low adhesion, allowing effective surface self-cleaning. The controlled nano/micro-structuring of the surface features also generates strong anti-reflection and light scattering effects, corroborated by numeric electromagnetic modeling, which lead to pronounced photocurrent enhancement along the UV-vis-IR range. The impact of these photonic-structured encapsulants is demonstrated on nanocrystalline silicon solar cells, that show short-circuit current density gains of up to 23.6%, relative to planar reference cells. Furthermore, the improvement of the devices' angular response enables an enhancement of up to 35.2% in the average daily power generation.
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