Quantitative characterization of silicon solar cells in the electro-analytical approach: Combined measurements of temperature and voltage dependent electrical parameters

Abstract

Electrochemical and photo-electrochemical systems, often involving solid-liquid interfaces, have traditionally dominated the field of material/device characterization using electro-analytical tools such as linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and impedance spectroscopy (IS). Recent developments in these measurement techniques have broadened their applications to various studies of non-electrochemical solid state systems. The present work provides further experimental illustration of these latter utilities of LSV and IS through a detailed study of the temperature and voltage sensitive features of the minority carrier lifetime, series resistance and back surface field (BSF) parameters of a mono-crystalline Si solar cell. Apart from displaying their characteristic temperature dependencies, the measured parameters respond to variations in the cell voltage, and exhibit certain mutually interacting features of the observed effects. The results also demonstrate how the characteristic features of charge recombination in the quasi-neutral and space charge regions of the solar cell can be resolved with D.C. voltage dependent A.C. impedance measurements.