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In this work, the microstructure and mechanical properties of atmospheric plasma-sprayed coatings of Al0.5CoCrFeNi2Ti0.5, prepared using gas-atomized powders at varying spray powers, are studied in as-sprayed and heat-treated conditions. Gas-atomized powders had spherical shapes and uniform element distributions, with major FCC phases and metastable BCC phases. The metastable BCC phase transformed to ordered and disordered BCC phases when sufficient energy was applied during the plasma-spraying process. During the heat treatment process for 2 hrs, disordered BCCs transformed into ordered BCCs, while the intensity of the FCC peaks increased. Spraying power plays a significant role in the microstructure and mechanical properties of plasma sprayed because at a high power, coatings exhibit better mechanical properties due to their dense microstructures resulting in less defects. As the plasma current was increased from 500 A to 700 A, the coatings’ hardness increased by approximately 21%, which is directly proportional to the decreased wear rate of the coatings at high spraying powers. As the coatings experienced heat treatments, the coatings sprayed with a higher spraying power showed higher hardness and wear resistances. Precipitation strengthening played a significant role in the hardness and wear resistances of the coatings due to the addition of the titanium element.

This paper proposes an epoxy-based anti-reflective micron structure layer for solar cell modules. A Solidworks software is used to design the micro-structure layers with different size and shapes (inverted pyramid and micro-lens). Then, An optical simulation software, Tracepro, is used to simulate the anti-reflection efficiency under the standard lighting source of AM1.5G. The difference between the flat layer and micro-structured layer has been analyzed to obtain the best micro-structure layer for solar cell modules. From the simulated results, the inverted pyramid textured layer that each pyramid’s width is 10μm and height is 5μm can improve the flux increment rate up to 13% compared with the flat layer at normal incidence. However, the best efficiency for micro-lens structure layer increases about 10% with radius of 25μm and height of 18.75μm and 25μm at 15o incidence. In addition, the thinner the Epoxy layer is, the better the anti-reflection efficiency is. Therefore, the proposed Epoxy-based micro-structure can improve the solar module for obtaining higher efficiency and best qualities.