The invention relates to photovoltaic transducers, in particular such transducers with a transparent substrate and electrode.
An optronic device conventionally comprises a transparent substrate, a photovoltaic sensor to absorb light and convert it into electricity, and a transparent electrode to collect the electricity generated, the electrode being disposed between the substrate and the photovoltaic sensor.
A transparent substrate is generally made of glass, such as borosilicate or soda-lime glass. A transparent electrode is frequently made of transparent conductive oxide such as doped indium oxide, doped zinc oxide, or doped tin oxide.
Refractive index transitions at the interfaces inside the transducer cause light reflections. Such light reflections reduce the conversion efficiency of the optronic device, with a reduced amount of light reaching the photovoltaic sensor. Light reflections can also be harmful to the environment in some applications, generating glare or making the device optronic.
A known solution to reduce transmission at the interface between air and glass substrate is to deposit multiple anti-reflective layers with refractive indices lower than that of the glass substrate, these indices decreasing as they are further away from the substrate. Such anti-reflective coatings have a very variable efficiency depending on the angle of incidence of the light in relation to the glass substrate, or even very variable depending on the wavelength of this light. Moreover, such layers are not necessarily suitable for application between the substrate and the electrode.
Another known solution is to texture an interface of the optronic device, for example the interface with the air of the glass substrate. Such a textured interface provides an intermediate refractive index at the interface, which reduces reflection. Such an interface has a lower sensitivity to the angle of incidence of light compared to the glass substrate.
A process for texturing one surface of the glass forming an air/glass interface is described in the document ‘Optimal Moth Eye Nanostructure Array on Transparent Glass Towards Broadband Antireflection’, published by Seungmuk Ji et al, in the journal ACS Applied Material Interfaces, in 2013, 5, pages 10731-10737. According to this process, the glass is masked according to a pattern and then partially etched according to this pattern in order to obtain a regular texture.
The document ‘Antireflective grassy surface on glass substrates with self-masked dry etching’, published by M. Song et al, in Nanoscale Research Letters 2013, 8:505, describes a process for texturing one surface of the glass forming an air/glass interface. This process is based on dry etching of the reactive ion etching type in a CF4/O2 mixture and simplifies the fabrication process by avoiding the use of masks.
The document ‘SF6/Ar Plasma textured periodic glass surface morphologies with high transmittance and haze ratio of ITO:ZR films for amorphous silicon thin film solar cells’ by Hussain et al, published in Vacuum 117 pages 91 to 97, describes a process for texturing a glass panel to obtain a diffusion by TCO deposited on the formed texture. This document proposes a dry etching process through an etching mask. Such a process is relatively complex to implement. In addition, the process used tends to degrade the optical transmission at the interface with the electrode relative to a smooth substrate. This can affect the conversion efficiency of the optronic device, especially when the photovoltaic sensor is of the thin-film type.
Thus, there is no known solution that achieves both an effective anti-reflection effect at the air/glass interface and a significant increase in the conversion efficiency of the optronic device.
The invention aims to solve one or more of these disadvantages. The invention thus concerns an optronic device, as defined in the accompanying claims.
The skilled person will understand that each of the features of a dependent claim or of the description can be combined independently with the features of an independent claim, without constituting an intermediate generalization.
The invention also concerns a process for fabricating an optronic device, as defined in the accompanying claims.
Other features and advantages of the invention will emerge clearly from the description provided below, by way of indication and without limitation, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
A textured surface is defined as a surface with a roughness or relief relative to a smooth geometric shape.
The substrate 2 is for example made of borosilicate glass or soda-lime glass. The glass substrate 2 has an outer surface 21 in contact with air at an interface 20, and an inner surface 22 in contact with the electrode 3 at an interface 23. The surfaces 21 and 22 are opposite and textured.
The transparent electrode 3 is continuous, in order to be able to collect and conduct the electrical charges generated by photon capture by the photovoltaic sensor 4. The electrode 3 is for example made of a conductive oxide such as doped zinc oxide, doped tin oxide, or doped indium oxide. The transparent electrode can also be made of an alloy of these materials, for example ITZO. The transparent electrode 3 has a surface 31 in contact with the surface 22 and of complementary shape. The transparent electrode 3 also has a surface 32, opposite to the surface 31.
The photovoltaic sensor 4 is a thin-film type, for reasons of compactness. A photovoltaic sensor 4 will typically be considered as a thin film if it has a thickness of less than 10 μm. Due to its thinness, the photovoltaic sensor 4 has the potential to convert light into relatively low electrical charges. Light transmission through the substrate 2 and the electrode 3 is therefore particularly important to increase the conversion efficiency of the photovoltaic sensor 4. The photovoltaic sensor 4 can also be of the semi-transparent thin film type, improving the conversion efficiency from light to electrical charges even further. The photovoltaic sensor 4 can have a composition known per se, for example can comprise a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film.
The surface 21 has an appropriate texturing that allows it to obtain an anti-reflective effect for a wide range of incidence angles. In particular, such an anti-reflection effect is much less sensitive to the angle of light incidence or wavelength of incident light than layer deposits with index gradients on a glass substrate. The texturing will be advantageously configured so that the optical reflection weighted by human spectral sensitivity at the surface 21 is less than 3%. Thus, the texturing of the surface 21 avoids glare or makes the sensor 1 slightly detectable. Optical reflection can be broken down into specular and diffuse optical reflection. Preferably, the texturing of the surface 21 is configured so that the proportion of diffuse reflection in the total optical reflection (weighted by human spectral sensitivity) is at least 45%. Thus, the surface 21 is even less detectable and further reduces the risk of glare. The human spectral sensitivity will correspond, for example, to a sensitivity model for photopic vision, for example the function V(A) defined by ISO.
The surface 22 has a suitable texturing that allows it to obtain an optical transmission effect to the transparent electrode 3, with a diffusion. Thus, by scattering the light transmitted in the electrode 3, the probability of absorption of an incident photon in the photovoltaic sensor 4 is increased in practice, and thus the conversion efficiency. This is particularly advantageous with a thin-film photovoltaic sensor 4. Advantageously, the texturing of the surface 22 is configured so that the proportion of diffuse transmission in the total optical transmission (weighted by human spectral sensitivity) is at least 45%.
Advantageously, the textures of the surfaces 21 and 22 are configured so that:
Such substrates have made it possible to carry out a number of experiments to determine their influence on the optical or electrical parameters of a photovoltaic sensor. The results of various experiments are illustrated in particular in the diagrams in
For the example shown in
For the example shown in
For the example shown in
For these three texturing examples,
As shown in
Different optical parameters for the examples in
The RTP reflection value on an outer surface of an untreated and untextured glass substrate is usually of the order of 8%. The RDP/RTP ratio for the same untreated and untextured glass substrate would usually be of the order of 1%.
The configuration of
The configuration of
The transparent electrode 3 must have a reduced resistance per square, typically less than 100 Ω/square, in order to optimally collect the electrical charges generated at the photovoltaic sensor 4. On the other hand, as shown in the diagram in
In addition, the diagram in
The diagram in
However, since high electrode thickness values tend to increase optical reflection according to the teaching of
The diagram in
The diagram in
The diagram in
Advantageously, the surface 32 of the electrode 3 has an appropriate texturing, providing an optical transmission effect towards the photovoltaic sensor 4, with a diffusion. Thus, by scattering the light transmitted in the photovoltaic sensor 4, the probability of absorption of an incident photon in this photovoltaic sensor 4 is increased in practice, and thus the conversion efficiency. This is particularly advantageous with a thin-film photovoltaic sensor 4. Advantageously, the surface 32 is textured so that the proportion of diffuse transmission in the total optical transmission (weighted by human spectral sensitivity) is at least 45%.
Advantageously, the surface 32 is also textured so that the proportion of diffuse reflection in the total optical reflection (weighted by human spectral sensitivity) is at least 45%.
In addition, a texturing with deeper reliefs on the surface 22 retains a texturing on the interface between the deposited electrode 3 and the photovoltaic sensor 4. Indeed, for a deposition of a relatively thin electrode 3 (typically less than 1 μm), at least part of the relief on the surface 22 is retained on the interface 340. This optimizes the optical transmission between the electrode 3 and the photovoltaic sensor 4.
In addition, in order to maintain a texturing of the surface 32 by simply depositing the material of the electrode 3 on the surface 22, the thickness of the electrode 3 is advantageously at most equal to the depth of the texturing of the surface 22.
In addition, to promote the continuity of the electrode 3, it will have a thickness at least equal to 25% of the texturing depth of the surface 22.
Other comparative performance measurements were performed with four test samples:
a fourth sample with a glass substrate 2 having textured surfaces, an electrode 3 made of ITZO with a thickness of 254 nm, a photovoltaic sensor 4 comprising a hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film, and an anti-reflection layer 5 made of ITZO with a thickness of 235 nm.
It can be seen that a certain number or electrical parameters are a priori poorer for samples corresponding to optronic devices according to the invention: a lower cell voltage Voc and a higher resistance per square Rs. However, it can be seen that the conversion efficiency RdtC and the current density Jsc generated by the photovoltaic sensors according to the invention are in practice improved. In practice, the degradation of electrical properties is very largely compensated by an improvement in optical properties (significant increase in the probability of capturing a photon in the optronic device in particular) in the optronic devices according to the invention.
The process for fabricating the optronic device can implement specific steps of texturing the surfaces 21 and 22 of the glass substrate 2.
In order to have a simple and inexpensive fabrication process, the texturing of the surfaces 21 and 22 of the glass substrate 2 is advantageously carried out without masking and with the same etching technology. Advantageously, the texturing of the surfaces 21 and 22 is carried out by dry etching of the vacuum plasma type. Such etching allows texturing to be carried out without passing the glass transition temperature of the glass. Advantageously, such etching is carried out for a maximum of 30 minutes.
Experimental results determined that etching parameters such as pressure, gas mixture type, polarization voltage and etching time made it possible to modify the roughness parameters of the etched surface. The roughness parameters of the etched surface can thus be modified, such as relief pitch, relief height, relief width and/or relief height/width ratio.
Experiments were thus carried out with the following plasma etching parameters on alumino-borosilicate glasses:
In the example shown in
In the example shown in
In the example shown in
The process for fabricating the optronic device 1 can implement specific steps to deposit the electrode 3 after the texturing of the surface 22. The electrode 3 can be formed, for example, by magnetron sputtering of a transparent conductive film onto the textured surface 22. The electrode material 3 can be known per se, for example a doped zinc oxide, a doped tin oxide, or a doped indium oxide.
Advantageously, the deposited electrode 3 must guarantee a resistance per square at most equal to 100 Ω/square. Such a resistance of the electrode 3 makes it possible to optimally collect the electrical charges generated at the photovoltaic sensor 4.
Advantageously, the deposited electrode 3 must have a minimum optical reflectivity over a wavelength range centred around 550 nm.
The process for fabricating the optronic device according to the invention can implement a known deposition step of a photovoltaic sensor 4 thin film. A known process for depositing hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film on an electrode can thus be implemented.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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18 72611 | Dec 2018 | FR | national |