Highly Transmissive Scalable Colored Silica Nanoparticle Coatings for Photovoltaic Panels

Large area highly transmissive colored coatings were fabricated by roll coating of SiO₂ nanoparticles on glass substrates and on the photovoltaic cell glass covers. This coating is to maintain an attractive color appearance of the exterior surface for architecturally integrated photovoltaics and can be coated on fabricated photovoltaic panels. These nanoparticles form ordered layers with thickness that can be controlled from one layer of nanoparticles to several layers. The color and optical properties of the nanoparticle coating was investigated for different SiO₂ nanoparticles with diameters of 200, 300, and 400 nm, which showed blue, pink, and green colors, respectively. Multilayer coatings of the nanoparticles coated on polycrystalline silicon solar cells provided blue, pink, and green colors with solar cell power loss of 5.47 %, 15.61 %, and 10.73 % for the 200, 300, and 400 nm, respectively. Single-layers act as an antireflection coating enhancing solar cell power without a noticeable change in solar cell appearance. Power gain of 3.39 % and 3.21 % is observed for single-later of 200 and 400 nm nanoparticles, respectively.