Generalized analysis of quasi-steady-state and transient decay open circuit voltage measurements

Date

2002-01-01

Authors

Kerr, Mark J.
Cuevas, Andres
Sinton, Ronald A.

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Publisher

American Institute of Physics (AIP)

Abstract

The current–voltage characteristics of solar cells and photodiodes can be determined by measuring the open-circuit voltage as a function of a slowly varying light intensity. This article presents a detailed theoretical analysis and interpretation of such quasi-steady-state Vocmeasurements(QssVoc). The ability of this analysis to accurately obtain the true steady-state device characteristics even in the case of high lifetime, high resistivitysilicon devices is demonstrated experimentally. The QssVoc technique can be used to determine the minority carrier lifetime, and the new generalized analysis is required to do this accurately. An important outcome is that solar cell and diode device characteristics can be obtained from measurements of either the photoconductance or the open-circuit voltage, even using transient techniques.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Device characteristics; High resistivity silicon devices; Minority carrier lifetimes; Photoconductance; Quasi-steady state; Transient decay; Transient techniques; Varying lights; Open circuit voltage; Slow light; Current voltage characteristics

Citation

Source

Journal of Applied Physics

Type

Journal article

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