The Recombination of Photogenerated Minority Carriers in the Depletion Layer of Semiconductor Electrodes

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Abstract
The problem of depletion layer recombination in illuminated semiconductor electrolyte systems, as used for solar energy conversion, is considered. It is shown that there can be four different kinetic cases. The conditions for the existence of these different cases as a function of the potential drop across the depletion layer, the irradiance, and the photocurrent are derived. Analytical solutions for current voltage curves for the different cases are derived and criteria for distinguishing between the different cases are given. The effects of concentration polarization of the majority carriers are considered and shown to be negligible for typical semiconductors.

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