• DOI:10.1039/C6NR03537J
• Corpus ID: 23624845

A new kind of transparent and self-cleaning film for solar cells.

@article{Xu2016ANK,
  title={A new kind of transparent and self-cleaning film for solar cells.},
  author={Qi Xu and Qi Zhao and Xiao-fei Zhu and Li Cheng and Suo Bai and Zenghua Wang and Leixin Meng and Yong Qin},
  journal={Nanoscale},
  year={2016},
  volume={8 41},
  pages={
          17747-17751
        }
}

• Qi Xu, Qi Zhao, +5 authors Yong Qin
• Published 20 October 2016
• Physics
• Nanoscale

A kind of one step and in situ etching method is developed to fabricate a highly optically transparent and flexible self-cleaning superhydrophobic film (SSF). This SSF exhibits a very rough surface morphology with hierarchical structure, which makes it have a contact angle of 154.6° and a sliding angle of smaller than 1°. And the SSF can also be self-cleaned in the wind. The SSF hierarchical structure scatters the incident light, but it almost doesn't attenuate the light. So the SSF has antireflection properties and a high light transmittance of 94%. The excellent self-cleaning property, high light transmittance and antireflection property mean that the SSF greatly enhances the performance of solar cells in practical working conditions. The solar cell's efficiency maintains at 95.8% of its initial value after covering with the SSF, which is about 1.7 times higher than that of the solar cell covered with dust, as in practical conditions.