Premium
Omnidirectional study of nanostructured glass packaging for solar modules
Author(s) -
Sakhuja Mridul,
Son Jaesung,
Verma Lalit K.,
Yang Hyunsoo,
Bhatia Charanjit S.,
Danner Aaron J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.2276
Subject(s) - materials science , solar cell , anti reflective coating , omnidirectional antenna , optoelectronics , optics , nanostructure , solar cell efficiency , energy conversion efficiency , nanotechnology , electrical engineering , layer (electronics) , physics , antenna (radio) , engineering
Antireflective light trapping glass nanostructures fabricated by a non‐lithographic process are investigated for their angle dependent properties to improve the omnidirectional performance of solar modules. Optical transmission and solar cell module I‐V measurements are used to understand the dependence of angular performance of nanostructures in the packaging glass. Nanostructures 100–400 nm in height demonstrate an increase in solar light transmission both for normal as well as oblique incidence and measurements show that a ~200‐400 nm nanostructure height is optimum for solar modules, providing an absolute increase of 1% in the power conversion efficiency at normal incidence and a gain in short circuit current density over a 120° angular cone of solar incidence. This shows that packaging glass texturing can be an important and often‐overlooked method to yield substantial gain in solar module efficiency. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.