By AZoNano
Topics Covered
Introduction
Anti-Reflective Coating
Technology
Applications of
Anti-Reflective Coatings
Introduction
Brisbane Materials Technology (BMT) and EVG have developed a
partnership to provide a total solution – equipment plus materials –
for anti-reflective coatings for solar and other applications. These
anti-reflective coatings coatings provide a 3% Wp improvement at the
lowest cost/m2 in the industry.
BMT supplies the liquid precursor material and cure chemistry to the
customer, while EVG provides all the necessary process steps in an
integrated equipment solution set, leveraging their 15+ years of
experience in technologies to coat, cure and test nano-scale materials
on large area substrates.
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Figure 1. BMT's
anti-reflective coating delivers 3% more light to the solar cell.
Anti-Reflective
Coating Technology
BMT’s patented technology creates a porous film of graded refractive
index silica from a liquid precursor at room temperature and
atmospheric pressure. The coating is chemically bonded to the glass
surface for optimum durability and life.
BMT coatings have more than 2 years of testing in a high-suns
accelerated environment (equivalent to >20 years in the field), and
have met all the requirements for a solar AR coating including those
embedded in IEC61215.
Industry-leading solar customers have evaluated BMT AR coatings and
found them to be the highest performing and most cost effective
solutions available today.
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Figure 2. Cross-section of
an anti-reflective coating on a glass substrate.
Applications
of Anti-Reflective Coatings
The BMT technology provides a broadband optical coating, one that
improves light transmission over the entire solar spectrum and at all
incident angles. The properties of the AR coating can be tuned to the
refractive index of the substrate. The optical bandpass can also be
adjusted to optimize the performance with different types of solar
cells.
Because the AR Coating is applied at room temperature, it can be
used in essentially all solar applications, including:
- Cover glass for c-Si PV
- CdTe, CIGs, CIS: apply to cover glass on finished module
- Secondary or primary optics for CPV
- Cover glass or concentrating optics for solar thermal
- Plastic substrates for organic PV
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Figure 3. Improved
transmittance using the BMT anti-reflective coating.
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Figure 4. EVG® large area
coating system
This material has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials
provided by EV Group.
For more information on this source, please visit EV Group.