Basics of solar cells

Whats a solar cell?

A solar cell is an electronic device which

directly converts sunlight into electricity.
Nearly all photovoltaic energy conversion
uses semiconductor materials in the form of a
p-n junction.

Whats a solar cell?

Light shining on the solar cell produces both a

current and a voltage to generate electric power.

Firstly, a material in which the absorption of light

raises an electron to a higher energy state.
secondly, the movement of this higher energy
electron from the solar cell into an external circuit.
The electron then dissipates its energy in the
external circuit and returns to the solar cell.
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Solar Cell Structure

The basic steps in the operation of
a solar cell are:
the generation of lightgenerated carriers;
the collection of the lightgenerated carries to generate a
current;
the generation of a large voltage
across the solar cell; and
the dissipation of power in the
load and in parasitic resistances.
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The first process is the absorption

of incident photons to create
electron-hole pairs.
Minority can recombine
A second process, the collection
by the p-n junction, prevents
recombination by using a p-n
junction to spatially separate the
electron and the hole.

Collection of carriers

Minority carriers cannot cross a semiconductor-metal

boundary and to prevent reconbimation, they must pass
the junction if they are to contribute to current flow.

Recombination of carriers

Collection Probability

The impact of
surface
passivation and
diffusion length
on collection
probability
The "collection probability" describes the probability that a
light generated carrier absorbed in a certain region of the
device will be collected by the p-n junction and therefore
contribute to the light-generated current.
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The light-generated current depends on the generation

of carriers and the collection probability of these carriers
Sensitive to surface

Quantum
efficiency

The "quantum
efficiency" (Q.E.)
is the ratio of the
number of carriers
collected by the
solar cell to the
number of
photons of a given
energy incident on
the solar cell.

The "external" quantum efficiency of a

silicon solar cell includes the effect of
optical losses such as transmission and
reflection.

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Internal quantum efficiency

IQE is the ratio of the number of

charge carriers collected by the
solar cell to the number of
photons of a given energy that is
absorbed by the cell.
The IQE is always larger than
the EQE.
A low IQE indicates that the
active layer of the solar cell is
unable to make good use of the
photons. A low EQE can indicate
that, but it can also, instead,
indicate that a lot of the light
was reflected.
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A Typical Solar cell

How PV Cells Work

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The Photovoltaic Effect

The collection of light-generated carriers by the p-n

junction causes a movement of electrons to the n-type side
and holes to the p-type side of the junction.
Under open circuit conditions, the forward bias of the
junction increases to a point where the light-generated
current is exactly balanced by the forward bias diffusion
current, and the net current is zero. The voltage required
to cause these two currents to balance is called the "opencircuit voltage".
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Electrical characteristics of a
solar cell

In the dark, a solar cell

behaves like a diode
The current that flows across
solar cell under a bias voltage
in the dark is called the dark
current (Idark).
Under illumination, the
minority carrier flow creates
an opposite current to the dark
current.
Imax called light-generated
current (Isc).

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Important parameters of a solar cell

Open circuit voltage (Voc): The voltage @ I = 0

Short circuit current (Isc): The current @ V=0
Max power density (Pmax):
Pmax = Imax V max
The Fill Factor (the squareness of the IV curve):

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Short circuit current Isc

Factors affect Isc
1. Band gap of semiconductor : smaller band-gap, lower energy

photon is required to excite electron, the higher Ic.

2. The thickness of the semiconducting materials.

3. The collection probability.

4. Light intensity: increasing intensity, increases Isc.
5. The area of the solar cell: J (mA/cm2) is used instead of I
(mA)
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Factors affecting Voc

1. Band gap: smaller band-gap, lower Vbi, lower Voc

2. Traps in the band gap induced by impurities, dislocations, etc
3. Traps at the semiconductor/metal contact
4. Temperature

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How bandgap affects efficiency

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Filling factor (FF)

Graphically, the FF is a measure of the "squareness" of

the solar cell and is also the area of the largest
rectangle which will fit in the IV curve.
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Power Conversion Efficiency

Where Ps is the incident light power

density.
The standard test condition for solar cell
is the Air Mass 1.5 spectrum (AM1.5),
where Ps= 1000 W/m2 at T=25oC.
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Tandem Solar Cells

Series connected cells are simpler to fabricate but the current is the
same though each cell so this contrains the band gaps that can be used
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Tandem Solar Cells

Efficiency of a an ideal
stack of solar cells as a
function of the number
of bandgaps. The
spectrum used here is
the direct spectrum
where the diffuse
radiation is excluded.
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Effect of Parasitic Resistances

The most common parasitic resistances are

series resistance and shunt resistance.
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Origins of series resistance

The series resistance is caused by:
1. Resistance of p and n layers to majority carriers flow.
2. Semiconductor/metal contact resistance.
3. The resistance of the top and rear metal contacts.
4. The other due to poor insulation, for example on the
edges of the cell.

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Origins of shunt resistance

1.

2.

3.

Shunt resistance, RSH, is typically due to

manufacturing defects, rather than poor solar cell
design.
Low shunt resistance causes power losses in solar
cells by providing an alternate current path for the
light-generated current.
Such a diversion reduces the amount of current
flowing through the solar cell junction and
reduces the voltage from the solar cell.
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Effect of Temperature

T increase equilibrium population of electrons (ni)

increases Idark increases lower Voc.
T increase band gap reduction increase Isc.
Voc reduction is more prominent than Isc enhancement.

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