Microstructured superhydrophobic anti-reflection films for performance improvement of photovoltaic devices

Highly durable anti-reflection and superhydrophobic (AR-S) functional film as solar panel surface material is desirable to reduce the panel cleaning cost and boost the performance of energy generation. Herein, we fabricated flexible plastic AR-S films with three-dimensional (3-D) micro-pillar arrays by a facile hot embossing lithography process, which can be potentially used for different variety of photovoltaic devices. In this work, the AR-S films are integrated with commercial polycrystalline silicon solar cells for demonstration purpose. The AR-S film works as an effective medium to enhance photo generation rates is also confirmed by numerical simulation that results in a broadband and omnidirectional enhanced performance. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.