Influence of carrier recombination in the space charge region on minority carrier lifetime in the base region of solar cells

Garrido, Carlota; Stolik, D.; Rodríguez, J.A.; Morales-Díaz, América Berenice

doi:10.1016/s0927-0248(98)00174-3

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Carrier lifetime is an indicator of the performance of both single-crystal and multicrystalline solar cells [178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186]. Stutenbaeumer and Lewetegn [180] used the photoinduced open-circuit voltage decay technique to investigate carrier lifetime in crystalline and polycrystalline silicon solar cells.…”

Section: Lifetime Studies Of Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical understanding and technological control of carrier lifetimes in semiconductor materials and devices: A critique of conceptual development, state of the art and applications

Khanna

2005

Progress in Quantum Electronics

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Section: Lifetime Studies Of Solar Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical understanding and technological control of carrier lifetimes in semiconductor materials and devices: A critique of conceptual development, state of the art and applications

Khanna

2005

Progress in Quantum Electronics

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“…The performance of a solar cell has aroused the interest of many investigators [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The solar p-n cell is a semiconductor photovoltaic cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The electron-hole generation process is accompanied with recombination processes. Now if the bias voltage is switched off, the builtin-voltage will change towards its equilibrium value, through a recombination process between the electrons and the holes during the decay of the external voltage [3]. The equilibrium state will be restored within a time interval  called as the relaxation time or it is defined as the minority carrier life time .It is worth to note that the electric potential across the depletion layer controls its electric resistance [4].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2) The second trend accepts the mechanism where an effective interface recombination velocity i s that occurs principally within the depletion layer at the metallurgical interface [3,4,13,14]. Indeed, the effect of the characteristics of the space charge region and the processes taking place within this layer has rarely been considered [3,9]. El-Adawi et al [15] studied theoretically the characteristics of the depletion layer.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Efficiency of a p-n Solar Diode as a Function of the Recombination Velocity within the Depletion Layer

El-Adawi¹,

Al-Shameri²

2012

OPJ

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The role of the carrier’s recombination velocity Si within the depletion Layer of p-n junction solar cell and the external bias voltage Va across the junction in determining the current density “J” through the cell is revealed. The unsteady carrier diffusion equation is solved under illumination conditions considering a source spectral function G(λ). The efficiency of the device as a function of Si , Va , G(λ) is obtained. Computations considering a silicon solar cell are given as an illustrative example.<o:p></o:p>

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“…10 It is greatly decreased by the presence of defect states such as interface states. 11,12 In the case of solar cells, photovoltages are markedly influenced by the minority carrier lifetime. 13 Recombination of electron-hole pairs generated in the surface region proceeds at surface states, resulting in a decrease in the quantum efficiency of short-wavelength light, and thus in a decrease in the photocurrent density.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Minority Carrier Lifetime of Hydrogen-Terminated Si Surfaces in Dry- and Wet-Air

Franco

Matsumoto

Kim

et al. 2012

ECS Solid State Letters

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Minority carrier lifetime of HF-treated Si(100) surfaces decreases in wet-air more rapidly than in dry-air. XPS measurements show that OH and O are mainly included in Si by keeping in wet-air and dry-air, respectively. OH cannot form network, and thus backbonded OH generates Si dangling bonds. On the other hand, backbonded O can form Si-O-Si networks, leading to the higher lifetime due to lower defect density. When the atmosphere is switched from dry-air to wet-air, the lifetime greatly decreases, and the workfunction increases. These changes are attributed to dominant formation of backbonded OH.Study on initial oxidation of Si is of importance not only from an academic viewpoint but also for application to semiconductor products such as solar cells and LSI. Semiconductor devices are usually fabricated using Si wafers after cleaning with the RCA method 1 followed by hydrofluoric acid (HF) etching. HF-etching forms ideal hydrogenterminated Si surfaces (i.e., only mono-hydride, Si-H) in the case of Si(111), 2 while mono-, di-(Si-H 2 ), and tri-(Si-H 3 ) hydride species are produced on technologically more important Si(100) surfaces. 3-5 HF-etched Si(100) surfaces with Si-H 2 and Si-H 3 are less stable in air than Si(111). Oxidation of HF-treated Si surfaces is enhanced by the presence of metal contaminants, more active species, defects, fluorineadsorbed sites, etc. 6,7 Initial oxidation of HF-treated Si surfaces were investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), etc. 6-9 Chabal et al., 6 reported that when HFtreated Si(100) surfaces were kept in air, vibrational peaks due to SiH, SiH 2 , SiH(O) 3 , and SiH 2 (O) 2 were observed, indicating that O atoms occupied back-bonds with Si-H bonds remaining on Si surfaces. Hirose et al., 7 also concluded that oxygen attacked Si back-bonds and surface Si-H bonds were still present after the oxygen attack.The minority carrier lifetime strongly affects the electrical characteristics of semiconductor devices. 10 It is greatly decreased by the presence of defect states such as interface states. 11,12 In the case of solar cells, photovoltages are markedly influenced by the minority carrier lifetime. 13 Recombination of electron-hole pairs generated in the surface region proceeds at surface states, resulting in a decrease in the quantum efficiency of short-wavelength light, and thus in a decrease in the photocurrent density. 14 Recombination currents possess a large ideality factor, e.g., 2, 15 and thus, a fill factor is also decreased.In the present study, changes of minority carrier lifetime for HFtreated Si surfaces with time kept in air have been investigated. It is found that the minority carrier lifetime strongly depends on humidity, and concluded that hydroxyl species (OH) under the surfaces decreases the lifetime because the species does not form network, resulting in the production of defect states such as Si dangling bonds. ExperimentalPhosphorus-doped n-type Si(100...

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Influence of carrier recombination in the space charge region on minority carrier lifetime in the base region of solar cells

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

Physical understanding and technological control of carrier lifetimes in semiconductor materials and devices: A critique of conceptual development, state of the art and applications

Physical understanding and technological control of carrier lifetimes in semiconductor materials and devices: A critique of conceptual development, state of the art and applications

The Efficiency of a p-n Solar Diode as a Function of the Recombination Velocity within the Depletion Layer

Changes in Minority Carrier Lifetime of Hydrogen-Terminated Si Surfaces in Dry- and Wet-Air

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