title: Packaging Glass with a Hierarchically Nanostructured Surface: A Universal Method to Achieve Self-Cleaning Omnidirectional Solar Cells.
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 efficient scattering ability of the 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 60°. 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 is a potential universal scheme for practical solar applications.
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Program, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) , Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Chin-An
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Program, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) , Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Meng-Lin
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Program, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) , Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Wan-Rou
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Optics and Photonics, National Central University , Chung-Li 320, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kun-Yu
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Electrical Engineering Program, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) , Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Jr-Hau
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: He
keywords: antireflective coatings; hierarchical; nanorods; nanowalls; self-cleaning; solar cells