Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2016
Anatase and rutile titanium dioxide thin films grown by a low temperature processare investigated for their use as a single layer antireflection coating for GaAssolar cells. The thin films are obtained by spin coating a layer from theTiO2 sol-gel and subsequently annealing at 150 °C. Thesol-gel is synthesized by the hydrolysis of titanium isopropoxide in thepresence of an acid or a base. By controlling the pH of the sol-gel duringgrowth, pure anatase and rutile phases are obtained. A pH of around 3.0 yieldsanatase phase while a pH of 9.0 yields pure rutile phase TiO2. Thetwo different phases of TiO2 are characterized by measuring the Ramanscattering spectra. The optical constants, thickness and reflectance of the thinfilms on GaAs are obtained using a spectroscopic ellipsometer. The sol-gel isspin coated on GaAs based solar cells and annealed at 150 °C to formthe anti-reflective layer. The performance of the solar cells is evaluatedbefore and after coating with the TiO2 films. The anataseTiO2 anti-reflective films performed better than the rutile with amaximum power conversion efficiency enhancement of 50%. Quantum efficiencyenhancement of 58% and 25% are obtained with anatase and rutile phase filmsrespectively. The performance enhancement of the solar cells using these thinfilms can be attributed to the destructive interference of light associated witha single layer coating on the solar cell surface.