Measurement of Relaxation Time of Excess Carriers in Si and CIGS Solar Cells by Modulated Electroluminescence Technique

Khatavkar, Sanchit; Muniappan, Kulasekaran; Kannan, Chinna V.; Kumar, Vijay; Narsimhan, Krishnamachari L.; Nair, Pradeep R.; Vasi, Juzer M.; Contreras, Miguel A.; Arora, Brij M.

doi:10.1002/pssa.201700267

Title: Measurement of Relaxation Time of Excess Carriers in Si and CIGS Solar Cells by Modulated Electroluminescence Technique

Journal Article · Fri Nov 10 00:00:00 EST 2017 · Physica Status Solidi. A, Applications and Materials Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.201700267· OSTI ID:1422880

Khatavkar, Sanchit ^[1]; Muniappan, Kulasekaran ^[1]; Kannan, Chinna V. ^[2]; Kumar, Vijay ^[2]; Narsimhan, Krishnamachari L. ^[1]; Nair, Pradeep R. ^[1]; Vasi, Juzer M. ^[1]; Contreras, Miguel A. ^[3]; Arora, Brij M. ^[1]

Indian Inst. of Technology (IIT), Mumbai (India)
MoserBaer Photovoltaic Pvt. Ltd., Greater Noida (India)
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Excess carrier lifetime plays a crucial role in determining the efficiency of solar cells. In this paper, we use the frequency dependence of inphase and quadrature components of modulated electroluminescence (MEL) to measure the relaxation time (decay) of excess carriers. The advantage of the MEL technique is that the relaxation time is obtained directly from the angular frequency at which the quadrature component peaks. It does not need knowledge of the material parameters like mobility, etc., and can be used for any finished solar cells which have detectable light emission. The experiment is easy to perform with standard electrical equipment. For silicon solar cells, the relaxation time is dominated by recombination and hence, the relaxation time is indeed the excess carrier lifetime. In contrast, for the CIGS solar cells investigated here, the relaxation time is dominated by trapping and emission from shallow minority carrier traps.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308; DE‐AC36‐08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1422880

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1408251

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-70995

Journal Information:: Physica Status Solidi. A, Applications and Materials Science, Vol. 215, Issue 2; ISSN 1862-6300

Publisher:: WileyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 9 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (19)

Effect of Traps on Carrier Injection in Semiconductors Fan, H. Y. Physical Review, Vol. 92, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.92.1424	journal	December 1953
Properties of Cu(In,Ga)Se ₂ solar cells with new record efficiencies up to 21.7% : Properties of Cu(In,Ga)Se Jackson, Philip; Hariskos, Dimitrios; Wuerz, Roland physica status solidi (RRL) - Rapid Research Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.201409520	journal	December 2014
Comparative study of electroluminescence from Cu(In,Ga)Se2 and Si solar cells Kirchartz, T.; Rau, U.; Kurth, M. Thin Solid Films, Vol. 515, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2006.12.105	journal	May 2007
Carrier Lifetime from Dynamic Electroluminescence Giesecke, Johannes A.; Schubert, Martin C.; Warta, Wilhelm IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, Vol. 3, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2013.2252236	journal	July 2013
Contactless determination of current–voltage characteristics and minority‐carrier lifetimes in semiconductors from quasi‐steady‐state photoconductance data Sinton, Ronald A.; Cuevas, Andres Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 69, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.117723	journal	October 1996
Silicon heterojunction solar cell with interdigitated back contacts for a photoconversion efficiency over 26% Yoshikawa, Kunta; Kawasaki, Hayato; Yoshida, Wataru Nature Energy, Vol. 2, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.32	journal	March 2017
Determination of Actual Carrier Lifetime from Differential Measurements Giesecke, Johannes A.; Glunz, Stefan W.; Warta, Wilhelm Energy Procedia, Vol. 38 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2013.07.249	journal	January 2013
Understanding and resolving the discrepancy between differential and actual minority carrier lifetime Giesecke, J. A.; Glunz, S. W.; Warta, W. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 113, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4790716	journal	February 2013
Modulated photoluminescence studies for lifetime determination in amorphous-silicon passivated crystalline-silicon wafers Brüggemann, R.; Reynolds, S. Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 352, Issue 9-20 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnoncrysol.2005.11.092	journal	June 2006
Trapping of Minority Carriers in Silicon. I. $P$ -Type Silicon Hornbeck, J. A.; Haynes, J. R. Physical Review, Vol. 97, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.97.311	journal	January 1955
Photographic surveying of minority carrier diffusion length in polycrystalline silicon solar cells by electroluminescence Fuyuki, Takashi; Kondo, Hayato; Yamazaki, Tsutomu Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 86, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1978979	journal	June 2005
Spatially resolved determination of the dark saturation current of silicon solar cells from electroluminescence images Glatthaar, Markus; Giesecke, Johannes; Kasemann, Martin Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 105, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3132827	journal	June 2009
Comparison of device performance and measured transport parameters in widely-varying Cu(In,Ga) (Se,S) solar cells Repins, I. L.; Stanbery, B. J.; Young, D. L. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 14, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.654	journal	January 2005
Photoluminescence imaging of silicon wafers Trupke, T.; Bardos, R. A.; Schubert, M. C. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 89, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2234747	journal	July 2006
A new approach to high-efficiency solar cells by band gap grading in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 chalcopyrite semiconductors Dullweber, T.; anna, G. H.; Rau, U. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 67, Issue 1-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-0248(00)00274-9	journal	March 2001
Self-consistent calibration of photoluminescence and photoconductance lifetime measurements Trupke, T.; Bardos, R. A.; Abbott, M. D. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 87, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2119411	journal	October 2005
Camera-based high frequency heterodyne lock-in carrierographic (frequency-domain photoluminescence) imaging of crystalline silicon wafers: Frequency-domain photoluminescence imaging of crystalline silicon wafers Sun, Qiming; Melnikov, Alexander; Mandelis, Andreas physica status solidi (a), Vol. 213, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.201532033	journal	November 2015
Measuring and interpreting the lifetime of silicon wafers Cuevas, Andrés; Macdonald, Daniel Solar Energy, Vol. 76, Issue 1-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2003.07.033	journal	January 2004
Recombination kinetics and stability in polycrystalline Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ solar cells Metzger, W. K.; Repins, I. L.; Romero, M. Thin Solid Films, Vol. 517, Issue 7, p. 2360-2364 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2008.11.050	journal	February 2009

Similar Records

Electrical characterization and comparison of CIGS solar cells made with different structures and fabrication techniques

Journal Article · Thu Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells · OSTI ID:1422880

Garris, Rebekah L.; Johnston, Steven; Li, Jian V.; +3 more

Bimolecular Additives Improve Wide-Band-Gap Perovskites for Efficient Tandem Solar Cells with CIGS

Journal Article · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Joule · OSTI ID:1422880

Kim, Dong Hoe; Muzzillo, Christopher P.; Tong, Jinhui; +15 more

A comparative study on charge carrier recombination across the junction region of Cu{sub 2}ZnSn(S,Se){sub 4} and Cu(In,Ga)Se{sub 2} thin film solar cells

Journal Article · Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · AIP Advances · OSTI ID:1422880

Islam, Muhammad Monirul; Luo, Xianjia; Sakurai, Takeaki; +7 more

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CIGS solar cells
frequency dependence
modulated electroluminescence
relaxation time
Si-HJ solar cells

Title: Measurement of Relaxation Time of Excess Carriers in Si and CIGS Solar Cells by Modulated Electroluminescence Technique

Citation Formats

References (19)

Similar Records

Related Subjects