An Effective Approach on Attaining Enhanced Silicon Solar Cell Performance Through Sputter Deposited Perovskite Thin Films

Antireflection coatings (ARCs) have become one of the key techniques for mass production of Si solar cells. They are generally performed by vacuum processes such as thermal evaporation, sol–gel and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. In this work, RF sputtering method was adopted to prepare the ARCs for the non-textured polycrystalline Si solar cells. The RF sputter coated strontium titanate(SrTiO 3 ), barium titatnate(BaTiO 3 )and SrTiO 3 -BaTiO 3 (mechanical blends). Si solar cells were inspected through various characterisation techniques. Through RF sputter deposition technique, thin films with good uniformity can be achieved easily. The influence of ARC on solar cell samples were studied through evaluation of structural, optical and electrical properties of coated and uncoated samples. The structural characterization was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The electrical resistivity was measured in dark at room temperature using four-point probe technique. UV–visible spectroscopy was utilised for determining optical characterization. It was found that SrTiO 3 -BaTiO 3 blend coated cell (M3)has considerable effect on the performance of solar cell as compare to uncoated and other coated solar cells. The maximum power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 19.58% and 21.15% were achieved for M3 solar cell in presence of solar and neodymium irradiation under open and controlled atmospheric conditions. Neodymium light radiation was similar to the natural sun light and can be used for growing plants and veterinaries under enclosed surface. Based on the results, SrTiO 3 -BaTiO 3 blends found to be an appropriate ARC material for minimising scattering of incident photons.