Antireflective coatings applied from metal-organic derived liquid precursors

Antireflective (AR) coatings, which are produced from organometallic driven solutions containing oxide constituents in a chemically polymerized form, are presented. These solutions leave a film on substrates which, upon heat treatment, converts to a glasslike oxide film having the desired optical thickness and index of refraction. The index can be varied continuously from 1.4 to 2.4; thus the AR coatings can be fine-tuned for different substrates and for specific wavelengths of light. Silicon solar cells AR-coated by this technique showed as much as 49% improvement in efficiency over the uncoated state. The real advantage of the process, however, lies in the fact that it is simple, well-suited for automated mass production of photovoltaic cells, and reduces the cost of coating application from an estimated $0.20 per W-package to about $0.01 per W-package.