A comparative study on omnidirectional anti-reflection SiO2 nanostructure films coating by glancing angle deposition

Fabricated omnidirectional anti-reflection nanostructure films as a one of the promising alternative solar cell applications have attracted enormous scientific and industrial research benefits to their broadband, effective over a wide range of incident angles, lithography-free and high-throughput process. Recently, the nanostructure SiO₂ film was the most inclusive study on anti-reflection with omnidirectional and broadband characteristics. In this work, the three-dimensional silicon dioxide (SiO₂) nanostructured thin film with different morphologies including vertical align, slant, spiral and thin films were fabricated by electron beam evaporation with glancing angle deposition (GLAD) on the glass slide and silicon wafer substrate. The morphological of the prepared samples were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM). The transmission, omnidirectional and birefringence property of the nanostructure SiO₂ films were investigated by UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometer (VASE). The spectrophotometer measurement was performed at normal incident angle and a full spectral range of 200 – 2000 nm. The angle dependent transmission measurements were investigated by rotating the specimen, with incidence angle defined relative to the surface normal of the prepared samples. This study demonstrates that the obtained SiO2 nanostructure film coated on glass slide substrate exhibits a higher transmission was 93% at normal incident angle. In addition, transmission measurement in visible wavelength and wide incident angles -80 to 80 were increased in comparison with the SiO2 thin film and glass slide substrate due to the transition in the refractive index profile from air to the nanostructure layer that improve the antireflection characteristics. The results clearly showed the enhanced omnidirectional and broadband characteristic of the three dimensional SiO2 nanostructure film coating.