Influence of Dislocations on the I-V Characteristics of Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a phenomenological approach for analysis of dislocations in a large-area device like a solar cell. A microscopic model of a dislocation is used to calculate the local effects of a dislocation on the dark and the illuminated characteristics of a p-n junction device. A statistical approach is then used to empirically arrive at the I-V characteristics of a small-area device with a uniform distribution of dislocations. Finally, these results are applied to develop a network model to determine the terminal characteristics of a large-area solar cell of a known spatial distribution of dislocations. We show that the performance of a solar cell is influenced not only by the density of dislocations but also by their spatial distribution; heavily dislocated regions exert a disproportionately large degradation effect on the device characteristics.