Outdoor Characterization of Solar Cells With Microstructured Antireflective Coating in a Concentrator Photovoltaic Monomodule

Microstructured antireflective coatings (ARCs) have been identified as a promising solution to reduce optical losses in concentrator photovoltaics' (CPV) modules. We fabricated and tested in field a CPV module made of four monomodules with a concentration factor of 250x that embed either solar cells with microstructured encapsulating ARC or solar cells with multilayer ARC as a reference. The microstructured encapsulating ARC was made of semiburied silica beads in polydimethylsiloxane. The module was in operation for one year in the severe climatic conditions of Sherbrooke, QC, Canada, before extracting the monomodules performance. Despite a suboptimal module design, we report a monomodule efficiency of 29.7% at 900 W/m(2) for a cell with microstructured encapsulating ARC. This proves the potential of microstructured encapsulating ARC to enable high-performance CPV systems.

Automated summary

Microstructured antireflective coatings (ARCs) are effective solutions to reduce optical losses in concentrator photovoltaics' (CPV) modules. We tested a CPV module with a concentration factor of 250x, embedding solar cells with microstructured encapsulating ARC or solar cells with multilayer ARC as a reference. The module operated for one year in severe climatic conditions, and despite suboptimal module design, a monomodule efficiency of 29.7% at 900 W/m(2) was achieved with the microstructured encapsulating ARC.