Development of calcium titanium oxide coated silicon solar cells for enhanced voltage generation capacity

Abstract

Depletion of fossil fuel based energy sources drive the present scenario towards development of solar based alternative energy. Polycrystalline silicon solar cells are preferred due to low cost and abundant availability. However, the power conversion efficiency of polycrystalline silicon is lesser compared to monocrystalline one. The present study aims at analyzing the effect of calcium titanium oxide (CaTiO3) antireflection (AR) coating on the power conversion of polycrystalline solar cells. CaTiO3 offers unique characteristics, such as non-radioactive and non-magnetic orthorhombic biaxial structure with bulk density of 3.91 g/cm3. CaTiO3 film deposition on the solar cell substrate has been carried out using Radio Frequency (RF) magnetron sputter coating technique under varying time durations (10 min to 45 min). Morphological studies proved the formation of CaTiO3 layer and respective elemental percentages on the coated substrate. Open circuit voltage studies were conducted on bare and coated silicon solar substrates under open and controlled atmospheric conditions. CaTiO3 coated on a solar cell substrate in a deposition time of 30 min showed 8.76 % improvement in the cell voltage compared to the bare solar cell.