Optical properties of hydrophobic ZnO nano-structure based on antireflective coatings of ZnO/TiO2/SiO2 thin films

摘要

High reflection and dust are an unwanted loss process in the applications of solar panels. However, using antireflective hydrophobic solar panels improves their photovoltaic efficiency and reveals to self-cleaning, time-consuming and cost-effective results. The design, synthesis, modification, and characterization of the nano hydrophobic and antireflective films of solar modules are reported. Simple method for producing ZnO/TiO2/SiO2 antireflection (AR) multilayered coating by sol-gel technique was synthesized. The optical properties of the multilayers have been investigated via Wemple-DiDomenico (WDD), Sellmeier, Spatzer-Fan and Drude models. The low refractive index (1.4-1.6 in the visible region) of ZnO/TiO2/SiO2 multilayers improves the transmittance of the anti-reflected coating while coral-like hierarchical structure of ZnO fabricated via hydrothermal technique produces hydrophobicity for the surface panel.