Abstract
Fused-silica packaging glass fabricated with a hierarchical structure by integrating small (ultrathin nanorods) and large (honeycomb nanowalls) structures was demonstrated with exceptional light-harvesting solar performance, which is attributed to the subwavelength feature of the nanorods and an efficiently scattering ability of honeycomb nanowalls. Si solar cells covered with the hierarchically structured packaging glass exhibit enhanced conversion efficiency by 5.2% at normal incidence, and the enhancement went up to 46% at the incident angle of 60º. The hierarchical structured packaging glass shows excellent self-cleaning characteristics: 98.8% of the efficiency is maintained after 6 weeks of outdoor exposure, indicating that the nanostructured surface effectively repels polluting dust/particles. The presented self-cleaning omnidirectional light-harvesting design using the hierarchical structured packaging glass would be a universal scheme for practical solar applications.
PMID: 26623934 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]