Performance enhancement of thin-film solar cell using Yagi-Uda nanoantenna array embedded inside the anti-reflection coating

A modification to the conventional anti-reflection coating (ARC) is proposed to improve the performance of the amorphous silicon solar cells. The performance is improved by replacing the conventional anti-reflection coating (ARC) by a modified ARC. The modified ARC has an embedded array of silver Yagi-Uda nanoantenna. Due to the highly directive and broadband characteristics of Yagi-Uda nanoantenna, the modified ARC minimizes the reflection over large range wavelengths and guides the incoming solar radiation towards absorber layer effectively which results in increased absorption and subsequent increase in the short-circuit current density. Solar cell with proposed ARC exhibits 1.66 times improved short-circuit current density and 1.43 times increased conversion efficiency. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on a Yagi-Uda nanoantenna incorporated in a solar cell to improve its performance.