Silicon nitride anti-reflection coating on the glass and transparent conductive oxide interface for thin film solar cells and modules

Anti-reflection coating (ARC) is well known as an important technique to enhance solar cell performance. Typical ARC has been applied on the glass surface to reduce light reflection loss at the air/glass interface. However, reflection loss occurs not only at glass surface but also at other interfaces such as glass/transparent conductive oxide (TCO) interface. The refractive index of SiNx is tunable from 1.6 to 2.7, and the range from 1.7 to 2.0 is suitable for ARC at glass/TCO interface. In this study, we examined the AR effect of silicon nitride (SiNx) deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at the glass/TCO interface with thin film silicon solar cell and module. Reflectivity reduction of 1.6% for glass/ZnO substrate has been obtained with optimal SiNx layer, which contribute 2.0% gain in cell efficiency. Besides, we also confirmed the relative efficiency gain of around 2% for large-sized solar module, leading to a world-record large area stabilized module conversion efficiency of 12.34%.