We characterized solar cells from different provenience and with different structure, but all with a mono-crystalline silicon absorber layer, using electroluminescence measurements under forward bias conditions. The investigated solar cells comprised classical pn-homojunctions, either with classical contact configuration or with interdigitated back contact configuration, and also amorphous silicon on crystalline silicon heterojunctions. The observed electroluminescence signal around 1150 nm is due to silicon band-to-band recombination. We measured the spectral distribution and extracted as parameters the peak wavelength, the overall peak emission intensity, the peak amplitude and the FWHM value. A very good correlation between emission intensity and solar cell efficiency has been found, even using very different device structures. One type of the investigated solar cells - namely the high efficiency conventional pn-solar cells has subsequently been subjected to a degradation induced by the irradiation with protons at an energy of 0.5 MeV and different fluences up to a maximum value of 5x10^5 protons/cm^2. The projected range of the protons in Silicon, as calculated by TRIM simulation, at this energy is about 7 Ohm cm. This means, that the damaged region is relatively close to the solar cell surface and concentrated in the pn-junction region. The quenching of the electroluminescence is shown to be a good measure for the evaluation of the irradiation damage. The fluence dependence of the degradation of the solar cell efficiency and of the the EL intensity are directly correlated. Additionally we measured also the effective excess charge carrier lifetime degradation after irradiation on reference samples by the contactless TRMC-technique.

Evaluation of high efficient silicon solar cells with mono-crystalline silicon absorber and the impact of high energy particle damage by electroluminescence measurements

NEITZERT, Heinrich Christoph;G. Landi;
2013-01-01

Abstract

We characterized solar cells from different provenience and with different structure, but all with a mono-crystalline silicon absorber layer, using electroluminescence measurements under forward bias conditions. The investigated solar cells comprised classical pn-homojunctions, either with classical contact configuration or with interdigitated back contact configuration, and also amorphous silicon on crystalline silicon heterojunctions. The observed electroluminescence signal around 1150 nm is due to silicon band-to-band recombination. We measured the spectral distribution and extracted as parameters the peak wavelength, the overall peak emission intensity, the peak amplitude and the FWHM value. A very good correlation between emission intensity and solar cell efficiency has been found, even using very different device structures. One type of the investigated solar cells - namely the high efficiency conventional pn-solar cells has subsequently been subjected to a degradation induced by the irradiation with protons at an energy of 0.5 MeV and different fluences up to a maximum value of 5x10^5 protons/cm^2. The projected range of the protons in Silicon, as calculated by TRIM simulation, at this energy is about 7 Ohm cm. This means, that the damaged region is relatively close to the solar cell surface and concentrated in the pn-junction region. The quenching of the electroluminescence is shown to be a good measure for the evaluation of the irradiation damage. The fluence dependence of the degradation of the solar cell efficiency and of the the EL intensity are directly correlated. Additionally we measured also the effective excess charge carrier lifetime degradation after irradiation on reference samples by the contactless TRMC-technique.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/4255257
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact