Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Surface and allied studies in silicon solar cells

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6284073
Two main results are presented. The first deals with a simple method that determines the minority-carrier lifetime and the effective surface recombination velocity of the quasi-neutral base of silicon solar cells. The method requires the observation of only a single transient, and is amenable to automation for in-process monitoring in manufacturing. This method, which is called short-circuit current decay, avoids distortion in the observed transient and consequent inacccuracies that arise from the presence of mobile holes and electrons stored in the p/n junction spacecharge region at the initial instant of the transient. The second main result consists in a formulation of the relevant boundary-value problems that resembles that used in linear two-port network theory. This formulation enables comparisons to be made among various contending methods for measuring material parameters of p/n junction devices, and enables the option of putting the description in the time domain of the transient studies in the form of an infinite series, although closed-form solutions are also possible.
Research Organization:
Florida Univ., Gainesville (USA)
OSTI ID:
6284073
Report Number(s):
N-84-29351; NASA-CR-173761; JPL-9950-895
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English