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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Low-Mobility Solar Cells: A Device Physics Primer With Application To Amorphous Silicon, Eric A. Schiff
Low-Mobility Solar Cells: A Device Physics Primer With Application To Amorphous Silicon, Eric A. Schiff
Physics - All Scholarship
The properties of pin solar cells based on photogeneration of charge carriers into lowmobility materials were calculated for two models. Ideal p- and n-type electrode layers were assumed in both cases. The first, elementary case involves only band mobilities and direct electron–hole recombination. An analytical approximation indicates that the power in thick cells rises as the 1 4 power of the lower band mobility, which reflects the buildup of space-charge under illumination. The approximation agrees well with computer simulation. The second model includes exponential bandtail trapping, which is commonly invoked to account for very low hole drift mobilities in amorphous …
Bandtail Limits To Solar Conversion Efficiencies In Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells, Kai Zhu, Weining Wang, Eric A. Schiff, Jianjun Liang, S. Guha
Bandtail Limits To Solar Conversion Efficiencies In Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells, Kai Zhu, Weining Wang, Eric A. Schiff, Jianjun Liang, S. Guha
Physics - All Scholarship
We describe a model for a-Si:H based pin solar cells derived primarily from valence bandtail properties. We show how hole drift-mobility measurements and measurements of the temperature-dependence of the open-circuit voltage VOC can be used to estimate the parameters, and we present VOC(T) measurements. We compared the power density under solar illumination calculated with this model with published results for as-deposited a-Si:H solar cells. The agreement is within 4% for a range of thicknesses, suggesting that the power from as-deposited cells is close to the bandtail limit.
Hole Drift-Mobility Measurements In Contemporary Amorphous Silicon, S. Dinca, Eric A. Schiff, V. Vlahos, C. R. Wronski, Q. Yuan
Hole Drift-Mobility Measurements In Contemporary Amorphous Silicon, S. Dinca, Eric A. Schiff, V. Vlahos, C. R. Wronski, Q. Yuan
Physics - All Scholarship
We present hole drift-mobility measurements on hydrogenated amorphous silicon from several laboratories. These temperature-dependent measurements show significant variations of the hole mobility for the differing samples. Under standard conditions (displacement/field ratio of 2×10-9 cm2/V), hole mobilities reach values as large as 0.01 cm2/Vs at room-temperature; these values are improved about tenfold over drift-mobilities of materials made a decade or so ago. The improvement is due partly to narrowing of the exponential bandtail of the valence band, but there is presently little other insight into how deposition procedures affect the hole drift-mobility.
Amorphous Silicon Based Solar Cells, Xunming Deng, Eric A. Schiff
Amorphous Silicon Based Solar Cells, Xunming Deng, Eric A. Schiff
Physics - All Scholarship
Crystalline semiconductors are very well known, including silicon (the basis of the integrated circuits used in modern electronics), Ge (the material of the first transistor), GaAs and the other III-V compounds (the basis for many light emitters), and CdS (often used as a light sensor). In crystals, the atoms are arranged in near-perfect, regular arrays or lattices. Of course, the lattice must be consistent with the underlying chemical bonding properties of the atoms. For example, a silicon atom forms four covalent bonds to neighboring atoms arranged symmetrically about it. This “tetrahedral” configuration is perfectly maintained in the “diamond” lattice of …