Mechanically Stable Metal/Silica Antireflective and Antidust Coatings with Controlled Optical Properties to Mitigate...

The extreme conditions of deserts such as intense solar irradiation and elevated dust concentration in the air pose significant operational issues to photovoltaic (PV) modules, optical components, and exposed functional surfaces. This research paper has presented metal-integrated silica thin-film coating materials that can be used to address dust adhesion, optical reflection loss, and environmental degradation at the same time. In this study, we investigate the metal integrated silica coatings with controlled optical and morphological properties using RF magnetron sputtering. 100 nm-SiO₂, 10 nm-Ti/100 nm-SiO₂, and 10 nm-ITO/100 nm-SiO₂ were developed and examined systematically to understand the dust adhesion mechanism for two months. The Ti/SiO₂ optimized coatings showed lower dust adhesion, and this is explained by the combined effect of the morphology, wettability, and surface energy. The potential dissipation of the electrostatic charge is expected as one of the factors. In addition, surface morphology strongly depends on the types of materials deposited on silica layers as found by average roughness (R _a). Contact angle measurements confirm that the hydrophilicity of such engineered coatings can be tuned through metal content in the films. Micromechanical properties of the coatings were thoroughly studied immediately after sputtering deposition and after 2 months of outdoor exposure using Vickers microindentation analysis. Among all, as-deposited Ti/SiO₂ coatings show excellent mechanical durability after a period of 2 months. As studied computationally, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is predicted to reach almost 27.28% in the case of 10 nm Ti/100 nm silica and decreases to less than 8% at 20 μm. Ti/silica layers of the device play a crucial role in device performance. Our investigation also found that the adhesion of the dust to the films reduces as the metal films are integrated into the silica layers, which confirms the intrinsic self-cleaning nature of the coatings. Our works also investigated that dust adhesion on the surface of these metal-integrated silica coatings is inversely proportional to the metal contents in the films, confirming the coatings' self-cleaning properties. The hydrophilic characteristics of the sputtered thin films can limit the adhesion of particles to the surface, which is crucial to enhance the performance of photovoltaic systems in desert areas. Such a solution can enhance both optical and mechanical characteristics as well as the performance of PVs in harsh conditions.