Effects of high photon gas density and radiative efficiency on upper bounds of energy conversion efficiency in single-crystal solar cells

Babcock, Sean J.; Irvin, Nicholas P.; Chen, Eric; Honsberg, Christiana B.; King, Richard R.

doi:10.1109/pvsc40753.2019.8980473

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…An increased rear reflectance reduces the discrepancy in the radiative recombination models by lowering the net radiative recombination. The model discrepancy for the 5·10 17 cm −3 n‐GaAs, for instance, reduces from 1.065% for

R_{b} = 0 %

to 0.284% for

R_{b} = 95 %

(typical for GaAs on an Au rear mirror 68 ). Model discrepancy further drops to 0.087% for the case of a perfect rear mirror.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Feedback between radiation and transport in photovoltaics

Irvin

Babcock

Chen

et al. 2022

Progress in Photovoltaics

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By building on the generalized Hovel model, this work develops an analytical solution to unify photon recycling, light trapping, and carrier transport in solar cells. Enhanced transport due to photon recycling diffusion is considered. While photon recycling diffusion is often negligible, it can significantly support transport in cases where charge diffusion is low but radiative efficiency is high. Next, the diffusion equation is solved to determine carrier collection for planar and textured cells. Results elucidate novel features in the external quantum efficiency (EQE) curve that occur for textured cells with high absorption and limited transport. Then, the effect of limited transport on the radiative recombination of solar cells is investigated in detail. While the traditional treatment of detailed balance uses the applied voltage to calculate a cell's radiative recombination, the present approach uses the spatially resolved quasi‐Fermi‐level splitting (QFLS). The discrepancy between the models is shown to be inconsequential to performance for cells with low radiative recombination (Si) or with high mobilities (lowly doped GaAs). However, for cells with high radiative recombination and low mobility (highly doped GaAs, polycrystalline CdTe, and thin‐film perovskites), incorporating variation in QFLS in the determination of radiative recombination can become necessary for accurate photovoltaic modeling.

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