Numerical simulation of the impurity photovoltaic effect in silicon solar cells

Amorphous Submicron Layer in Depletion Region: New Approach to Increase the Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency

“…Alternatively (and probably with higher accuracy), AL can be calculated, according to a modified Shockley-Read-Hall model that involves the generation-recombination process through inserted deep levels [16,18].…”

Impurity photovoltaic effect in magnesium‐doped silicon solar cells with two energy levels

“…In a second step, the electron is excited from there to the conduction band by a second photon with energy hν 2 . The net recombination rate U via impurity is given by 2, 6 where n and p are the electron and hole concentrations, and where τ n0 and τ p0 are the lifetimes for electrons and holes, c n and c p are the electron and hole capture coefficients, N t is the impurity concentrations, n 1 and p 1 are the electron and hole concentrations when the Fermi level coincides with the impurity level, E t is the impurity energy level, E C and E V are the conduction and valence band edges, N C and N V are the effective densities of states in the conduction and valence bands, g nt and g pt are the optical emission rates from the impurity for electrons and holes, and $\sigma _{{\rm n}}^{{\rm opt}} $ and $\sigma _{{\rm p}}^{{\rm opt}} $ are the electron and hole optical emission cross‐sections of the impurity. In Eqs.…”

“…The electron and hole capture coefficients are set as 1.2 × 10 −8 and 1 × 10 −15 cm 3 /s 1 11, 15, 16, respectively. The basic parameters used for the IPV Si solar cell at 300 K are listed in Table 1 2, 4, 6, 12. The electron and hole photoemission cross sections of the Mg impurities are calculated according to the model of Lucovsky 17.…”

“…In the past few years, new concept solar cells have been developed for improvement of cell efficiency. The impurity photovoltaic (IPV) effect has been proposed as a potential approach to improve cell performance 1–11. The IPV cell can absorb additional lower‐energy photons by introducing an impurity energy level in the semiconductor bandgap.…”

“…Hence, the IPV effect should improve cell performance. In previous work, several impurities were investigated as deep‐level impurity in IPV cell, such as indium 2, 6, 8, tellurium 9, thallium 10, and sulfur 11. But there have been few reports on the IPV effect with two deep energy levels 7.…”