Theory of open-circuit photovoltage decay in a finite base solar cell with drift field

Abstract

A theory of open-circuit photovoltage decay has been developed in a pn junction solar cell by using the Sturm-Liouville R-transform technique. The theory accounts for finite thickness of the base, drift field in the base and a finite surface recombination velocity at the back surface. The theory is applied to analyse some experimental results on photovoltage decay in a solar cell induced by monochromatic light. A good fit is obtained between the theoretical and the experimental results which gives an estimate of excess carrier lifetime, diffusion length and drift field in the base as well as the base thickness. It is shown that the excess carrier lifetime, as determined by the slope of the voltage decay curve, will be an effective lifetime which depends upon the sign and the magnitude of the drift field as well as the thickness of the base.

Open-circuit voltage decay transient in dislocation-engineered Si p–n junction

“…To our knowledge this is the first study of the open-circuit voltage decay transient in DE Si and we demonstrated the possibility of exponential decay of V oc (t). However, the results in figure 2 are different from those observed in some dislocation-free solar cells with a linear decrease in V oc (t) after the illumination is switched off [21][22][23][24]:…”

“…It is found [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] that V oc can decay according to the exponential function. However, in some dislocation-free solar cells V oc is found [21][22][23][24] to decrease linearly with time after the illumination is switched off.…”

Poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) as a Hole Transport Layer for Colloidal Quantum Dot Solar Cells

“…Open-circuit voltage decay measurements were also performed as shown in Figure b. Under open-circuit conditions, charges build up under illumination and longer charge lifetimes signify a pronounced reduction in carrier recombination as seen in the case when P3HT was used.…”

Effect of pn coupling on open-circuit photovoltage decay in a silicon pn junction solar cell

“…Finally, it may be remarked that we tried to make a quantitative comparison between this theory and the experimental results of Madan andTewary (1983, see also Sharma andTewary 1982). We fixed the parameters of the base as obtained by Sharma and Tewary (1982) and varied the parameters of the diffused layer in order to get the leastsquare fit with the experimental results.…”

“…Theories of open-circuit photovoltage decay (PVD) obtained after a rapid termination of illumination in a pn junction solar cell have been given recently by Jain (1981), Dhariwal and Vasu (1981), Joshi and Singhal (1982), Murlidharan et a1 (1982) and Sharma and Tewary (1982). In all these theories the effect of the front diffused layer (emitter) on the PVD has been neglected.…”