Photovoltaic investigation of minority carrier lifetime in the heavily-doped emitter layer of silicon junction solar cell
- 1 January 1982
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Journal of Applied Physics
- Vol. 53 (1) , 507-513
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.329955
Abstract
The minority carrier lifetime in a phosphorous-diffused layer of a conventional N+/P silicon photocell has been investigated experimentally. The photovoltages have been measured as a function of photon flux density from low to medium illumination levels. From the quasi-Fermi level analysis of Gray-Kao-Schroder, we have determined the carrier recombination lifetime as a function of the photogeneration rate 〈G〉 in the heavily-doped N+ layer. When the band gap narrowing effect is taken into consideration, the recombination processes can be described by (i) a ’’positive-field controlled’’ Shockley-Reed-Hall recombination at low photo injection level, (ii) a ’’positive-field influenced’’ Auger recombination at the medium injection level, and (iii) a ’’negative-field controlled’’ Auger recombination at the high injection level. Under a very high photoexcitation condition, the magnitude of the saturated open circuit voltage of the cell is limited by the recombination lifetime at the surface contact region.This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
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