Glass surface etching with Aluminium-induced texture process for thin film solar cell applications

• Published in: Materials letters Vol. 221; pp. 305 - 308
• Main Authors: Rayerfrancis, Arokiyadoss, Bhargav, P. Balaji, Ahmed, Nafis, Balaji, C., Kumar, Ganesh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 15.06.2018; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Aluminium induced texturization; Aluminum; Atomic force microscopy; Chemical etching; Glass etching; Glass substrates; Haze; Materials science; Optical properties; Organic chemistry; Photovoltaic cells; Solar cells; Surface layers; Surface roughness; Thin films; Trapping; Zinc oxide; Zinc oxides; Atomic force microscopy; Aluminium induced texturization; Optical properties; Glass etching
• ISSN: 0167-577X; 1873-4979
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2018.03.154

•Aluminium induced glass substrate surface texturization.•Effect of annealing time and aluminium thickness on surface roughness is studied.•Correlation between surface roughness on transmission and haze is investigated.•Morphological & optical studies of transparent conducting oxide on textured glass. Various approaches have been explored to enhance the efficiency of thin film solar cells by adopting new materials, novel device structures and implementing various light-trapping techniques. Generally, the light trapping is achieved by texturization of thin film transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer by chemical etching. In the present study, we have etched the surface of the glass substrate by Aluminium-Induced Texturization (AIT) process. A set of experiments is carried out with different thicknesses of the Aluminium and annealed for different durations. The effect of AIT on the glass surface roughness is studied using AFM analysis. The optical transmission and haze of the etched glass substrates are measured using UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometer. Aluminium-doped Zinc oxide (AZO) layer is deposited on the etched glass and the effect of glass etching on the properties of AZO thin film in terms of surface roughness, and optical properties are studied.