LAUSR

Abstract We report an efficient light trapping for maskless large area randomly textured glass structures with various haze ratios in silicon thin film solar cells. By well controlling the ratio of buffered hydrofluric acid (BHF) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4), we were able to prepare the randomly textured maskless glass structures with high transmittance above 90% and variable haze ratio from 20.79 to 54.78% in the visible wavelength (380–800 nm) region. It was observed that haze ratio of textured glass was dependent on feature size, etching depth and rms roughness. Multi-textured aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films were deposited on textured glass structures showed high transmittance (83.78–85.06)% and haze ratio (45.03–65.05)% in visible wavelength region. An enhancement in haze ratio of multi-textured AZO films was due to an increase of rms roughness from 16.4 to 185.5 nm as shown by 3D-alpha step profiler images. Multi-textured AZO films deposited on various textured glass superstrates were employed as a front transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer for the fabrication of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film solar cells (TFSCs). The a-Si TFSCs deposited on structure-C glass showed the maximum performance as; open circuit voltage = 869 mV, short circuit current density = 16.68 mA/cm2, fill factor = 67.8% and efficiency = 9.79%. An enhancement of photocurrent was noticed from 15.64 to 16.68 mA/cm2 for as deposited a-Si TFSCs to structure-C based a-Si TFSCs.