## 1 Introduction  
Recent research in Si solar cell technology is basically focused on reducing the manufacturing cost by means of using low-cost and effective raw materials [1]. Among all solar materials, a coating of a thin layer, called the antireflection (AR) layer, on Si surfaces is applied for reducing the incident reflection and to increase light absorption. In commercial c-Si solar cells, a silicon nitride (SiNx) layer is generally used as an AR material because it shows good attachment with passivated Si surfaces [2]. The expensive Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) method has been applied to deposit SiNx AR layers. The PECVD process is usually faced with several disadvantages, such as controlling and damaging the Si substrate with plasma during the collision of the Si surface and secondary electrons [34]. Research communities are uninterruptedly concentrating their efforts to explore cost-effective and ecofriendly photovoltaic (PV) technology [5, 6]. Various AR materials having high refractive indexes, such as Si\({}_{3}\)N\({}_{4}\), a-SiN\({}_{x}\), SiO, SiO\({}_{2}\), TiO\({}_{2}\), Ta\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{5}\), MgF\({}_{2}\), SiO\({}_{2}\)-TiO\({}_{2}\), and ZnS, have been applied in the fabrication of c-Si solar cells [7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12]. Zinc oxide (ZnO) has a variety of favorable properties, such as high electron mobility, a wide bandgap of 3.37 eV, and strong room temperature luminescence for many electronic and electrical devices [13; 14]. ZnO, as a promising AR material, is receiving much attention due to its attractive dielectric properties, good transparency, showing an adjustable refractive index, and excellent capability to grow a textured layering or coating via anisotropic growth [15; 16; 17]. In that context, growth of ZnO nanorods (NRs) on Si wafers for light trapping and minimizing the reflectivity of the solar spectrum could be an efficient tool for application in Si solar cells [18]. ZnO NRs show great potential for the optical imprisonment effect, which makes the proper AR materials for high-performance c-Si solar cells [19]. The growth of nanostructures like nanowires, nanorods, nanopyramids, and nanopillars over c-Si wafers can efficiently reduce the reflection by c-Si solar cells [20]. ZnO NR arrays on Si substrates have demonstrated unique optical absorption and excellent trapping of incident light by the optical antenna effect [21]. The ZnO NRs as AR layers considerably induce reflection in a broad wavelength region at different incident angles because continuous transition in the effective refractive index can be regarded across the air-to-wire interface [22; 23; 24; 25]. The AR behavior of the ZnO NRs has owned a lot of attention because of its low dielectric constant and appropriate refractive index. Without a proper AR layer, c-Si solar cells face significant energy loss and less absorption of light. Therefore, it has been realized that the deposition of vertically arranged NRs could be the promising means to achieve low-cost solar cells [26; 27; 28]. Including other deposition techniques for ZnO NRs, the low-temperature solution method can offer a highly suitable method for controlling NR sizes and densities over Si surfaces at low temperatures. The absorption of light or multiple reflections can be realized by deploying multiple transparent layers or zigzag structures on the top surface of c-Si solar cells [29]. In our previous work, [PERSON], [PERSON] et al. prepared SiC-SiO\({}_{2}\) nanocomposite AR material, coated by spin coating on Si solar cells, and manifested a reasonable reduction in reflectance to 7.08%. SiC-SiO\({}_{2}\) AR-coated Si solar cells presented a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.99%, similar to SiNx AR-coated Si solar cells [30]. Further, [PERSON], [PERSON] et al.