Optimization of the fabrication parameters for high performance iron oxide antireflection coating for solar energy applications / Ahmed Ibrahim Omran Hamed ; Supervised Said Sayed Mohamed Elegamy , Waheed Abdallah Badway , Marwa Fathy Ibrahim

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Physical Chemistry

Different architectures of Ü-Fe₂O₃ were synthesized by the hydrothermal technique without and with polyethylene oxide (PEO) with different molecular weights of (65K, 100K and 8M MW). The structure and morphology of the formed iron oxide Nano-powder were analyzed by XRD, FTIR, and SEM. Antireflective coatings (Nano-ARC) of Ü-Fe₂O₃ were deposited on soda lime glass substrate using dip coating technique (dipping rate 40 mm/min, coating time 5 min at 25{u00B0}C, as prepared sample).To study the effect of temperature on the ARC film, the samples were annealed at 300{u00B0}C and 500{u00B0}C for 24 hrs. Well defined Nano-bundle-like and Nano-rods Ü-Fe₂O₃ architectures were produced when using PEO with 100K MW in the hydrolysis process at 300{u00B0}C. The optical properties of the ARC films were studied and the data showed that the maximum transmittance was recorded for the samples prepared using PEO 100K MW and annealed at 300oC.The ARC of Ü-Fe₂O₃ was deposited on ITO glass substrate and utilized in the Nano-crystalline dye sensitized solar cell, DSSC's.The results showed that the power efficiency of the DSSC had improved and increased from 6% to 7.6% at normal incidence radiation

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