IJISET - International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology, Vol. 1 Issue 6, August 2014. www.ijiset.com ISSN 2348 – 7968 Multilayer Antireflection Coating for perceptible band on Silicon Substrate Gaurav Sinha 1 , Sunil Kumar 2 , Ravindra Kumar Yadav 3 1 Research Scholar, Shridhar University, Pilani, Rajasthan, India 2 United College of Engineering and Research, Greater Noida, UP, India 3 J.R.E. Group of Institutions, Greater Noida, UP, India Abstract- Present work aims at the characterization of ARC films in the visible spectrum, up to five layers antireflection coating film were designed and simulated, optical reflection values were deduced with a Transfer Matrix Method formulation (TMM). Six materials including nanoporous material have been selected to investigate the optimum values of the Anti reflection coating (ARC) film for solar cells. The present work has been carried out to investigate the optimum values of reflectance as a function of wavelength in the visible region. The reflectance has been reduced from 32% of silicon surface to less than 1% using multilayer ARC film. It has been observed that by increasing the number of layers the average reflectance decreases over a broad range of visible spectrum. Keyword: Antireflection Coating (ARC), Reflectance, Transfer Matrix Method, Double layer, Three Layer, Four Layer, Five Layer, Solar cells. 1. Introduction Silicon is the best known semiconductor optical material with relatively high refractive index. The most important application of silicon in the visible spectrum is photovoltaic solar panel [Berning, 1963; Dobrowolski, 1995]. The conversion of solar energy into other energy form is more effective if the reflectance of the light receiving surface of solar device is minimal in the solar spectrum range [Kolton, 1981]. The efficiency of a solar cell and its lifetime can be raised by coating the light sensitive surface of the cell with an Anti Reflection Coating (ARC) [Kolton, 1981]. To obtain the AR response at a single wavelength, a single layer or two layers are sufficient. However, when the AR function is broadened to cover a range of wavelengths, the number of layers must also be increased, and the AR structure is a multilayer structure. Many design procedures have been applied to solve this design problem. Most of these procedures address the problem of having a fixed number of refractive indices that are repeated periodically. The optimal length of each layer that satisfies the required specifications is then determined [Kumar et al., 2005; Macleod, 2001]. The matrix method [Mussett et al., 1970] is usually employed for calculation of the reflection coefficient. While the well-known single layer quarter-wave film can lead to zero reflection at a single wavelength, broadband ARC is often needed for many applications. In practice coating materials with the required refractive index for the quarter-wave antireflective (AR) film may not be available. To address these issues, a multilayer stack of homogeneous thin films has been investigated extensively for over half a century [Schallenberg, 2008], resulting in the development of a rich variety of multilayer thin film schemes [Thelen, 1989] and design methodologies [Wright D.N. et al., 2005]. The aim of this research is to present a computational process for the numerical design and simulation of antireflection coatings. The optical thickness and refractive index of each layer is adjusted to optimize the reflectance as a function of wavelength. 2. Design Methodology Transfer Matrix Method is used to calculate the reflection coefficient of a multilayer stack, which consist of series of k thin film dielectric layers, having a physical thickness d 1 ,d 2 ,d 3 ,……,d k and refractive indices n 1 ,n 2 ,n 3 ,…….n k , respectively, deposited on a substrate of refractive index n s . Then for 98