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 · 10 November 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.

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

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

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

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

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