Amitabha Sinha

Dependence of the Photocurrent of a Schottky-Barrier Solar Cell on the Back Surface Recombination Velocity and Suggestion for a Structure with Improved Performance

Though Schottky-barrier solar cells have been studied extensively previously, not much work has been done recently on these cells, because of the fact that conventional p-n junction silicon solar cells have much higher efficiency and have attracted the attention of most of the researchers. However, the Schottky-barrier solar cells have the advantage of simple and economical fabrication process. In this paper, the effect of back surface recombination velocity on the minority carrier distribution and the spectral response of a Schottky-barrier silicon solar cell have been investigated and, based on this study, a new design of the cell with a back surface field has been suggested, which is expected to give much improved performance.

Minority Carrier Distribution in the Base Region of a pn Junction Silicon Solar Cell and its Contribution to the Spectral Response

Analytical and experimental research work has been previously by various researchers on silicon solar cells. In this paper, an analytical study has been carried out on the light generated excess minority carrier distribution and photocurrent in the base region of a p + n junction solar cell. The effect of back surface recombination velocity, doping and absorption coefficient on the minority carrier distribution in the n type base layer have been observed and the spectral response component due to this region has been obtained. The minority carrier profile helps in understanding the physics of the solar cells.