Antireflection coatings designed by the average uniform algorithm for thin film solar cells

Effective coatings improve the performance of any device designed to emit or collect light over a range of angles and wavelengths. Improved broadband and wide angle antireflection coatings (ARCs) are a simple and direct way to improve solar cell performance. In this paper we demonstrate a multilayered ARC optimized using a new meta-heuristic algorithm called the average uniform algorithm (AUA). Comparison between the well-known genetic algorithm and the AUA showed that both achieved similar results but the AUA converged much faster. The coating optimized by AUA for broadband and wide-angle emission is applied to a copper zinc tin sulfide based thin film solar cell by co-sputtering of high and low refractive index material. A significant improvement in efficiency was observed over wide angle and bandwidth with a typical improvement of 15% over the uncoated solar cell. This AUA methodology is proven to be an efficient method for design of general ARCs.