A critical evaluation of the effective diffusion length determination in crystalline silicon solar cells from an extended spectral analysis

Journal Article · Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1998 · IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/16.701490· OSTI ID:638410

Keller, S; Spiegel, M; Fath, P; Willeke, G P; Bucher, E ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Konstanz (Germany). Faculty of Physics

This note draws attention to possible errors when characterizing silicon solar cells by means of the effective minority carrier diffusion length L{sub eff} as defined in the paper on ``Numerical modeling of textured silicon solar cells using PC1D`` by Basore. The approximations underlying the analytical expression for L{sub eff} are critically reviewed. Their impact on the determination of the minority carrier bulk diffusion length L{sub b} from L{sub eff} is discussed for a 250-{micro}m thick Si solar cell. It is found that considerable errors occur in the base of diffusion lengths larger than the cell thickness even when neglecting any measurement uncertainty.

• OSTI ID: 638410
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 45, Issue 7; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1998
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
DIFFUSION LENGTH
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
CHARGE CARRIERS
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY