Amorphous Er₂O₃ films for antireflection coatings

This paper reports that stoichiometric, amorphous, and uniform Er₂O₃ films are deposited on Si(001) substrates by a radio frequency magnetron sputtering technique. Ellipsometry measurements show that the refractive index of the Er₂O₃ films is very close to that of a single layer antireflection coating for a solar cell with an air surrounding medium during its working wavelength. For the 90-nm-thick film, the reflectance has a minimum lower than 3% at the wavelength of 600 nm and the weighted average reflectances (400–1000 nm) is 11.6%. The obtained characteristics indicate that Er₂O₃ films could be a promising candidate for antireflection coatings in solar cells.