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Fuyuki 2005

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Photographic surveying of minority carrier diffusion length in polycrystalline

silicon solar cells by electroluminescence


Takashi Fuyuki, Hayato Kondo, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Yu Takahashi, and Yukiharu Uraoka

Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 262108 (2005); doi: 10.1063/1.1978979


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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 86, 262108 共2005兲

Photographic surveying of minority carrier diffusion length in polycrystalline


silicon solar cells by electroluminescence
Takashi Fuyuki,a兲 Hayato Kondo, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Yu Takahashi, and Yukiharu Uraoka
Graduate School of Materials Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5, Takayama,
Ikoma, Nara 630-0192, Japan
共Received 23 November 2004; accepted 23 May 2005; published online 24 June 2005兲
Photographic surveying of the minority carrier diffusion length distribution in polycrystalline silicon
solar cells was proposed. Light emission from the cell under the forward bias was captured by a
charge coupled device camera. We have found that the intensity distribution of light emission clearly
agreed with the mapping of minority carrier diffusion length in polycrystalline silicon active layers.
The emission intensity had a one-to-one relationship with the minority carrier diffusion length,
which yielded a semiquantitative analysis method of the diffusion length mapping and the detection
of the deteriorated areas. © 2005 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.1978979兴

In recent years, the production scale of solar cells has carrier diffusion length and the detection of deteriorated
increased remarkably to meet with the pressing requirements areas.
of practical photovoltaic systems. Among installed systems, The schematic measurement setup is shown in Fig. 1. A
more than 90% are crystalline silicon cells, and especially sample cell biased at an appropriate forward voltage emitted
polycrystalline silicon 共poly-Si兲 shows the advantages of low infrared light, which was collected by the cooled CCD cam-
cost and large area with relatively high efficiency. In order to era using a selected objective lens. The cooled 共at around
get reliable high efficiency under a mass production process, −50 ° C兲 CCD could capture 1 ⫻ 1 cm2 cell area by 680
quick and precise evaluation of cell performance and feed- ⫻ 680 pixels in the sensitive wavelength region of
back to production lines are indispensable. Usually the fab- 300– 1100 nm. Through the data acquisition and smoothing
ricated cells and/or modules are inspected simply by current/ process, the spatial resolution was reduced, and the resolu-
voltage output performance under solar simulated light. For a tion limit became about 50 ␮m in length.
detailed examination of cell performance, the most important The minority carrier diffusion length was calibrated by
material parameter to be monitored is the minority carrier the light-beam-induced current 共or voltage兲 analysis using
diffusion length 共or lifetime兲, which governs the collection four wavelengths of 660, 890, 950, and 980 nm. The spatial
efficiency. The photoconductivity decay method, using mi- resolution of the LBIC was 250 ␮m. One measuring point of
crowave reflection,1 is widely used to check the minority the LBIC method included 5 ⫻ 5 points of the emission in-
carrier lifetime of substrates, but it requires good surface tensity measurement, so that an average of 25 values of
passivation in order to derive an accurate bulk lifetime. After emission intensity was used when the relationship between
the formation of p / n junctions, the spectroscopic light-beam- the diffusion length and the emission intensity was dis-
induced current2,3 共LBIC兲 or the electron-beam-induced cur- cussed.
rent methods4 are used, at the laboratory level, to elucidate Polycrystalline Si solar cells 共1 cm⫻ 1 cm兲 were fabri-
the minority carrier diffusion length and the effects of defects cated through conventional device processes using the cast
and/or grain boundaries. In all these methods, the probe tools silicon substrate. The average efficiency of measured
共light, electron beam, etc.兲 are required in order to acquire samples was 13%–15%. Detailed materials properties and
the spatial distribution of the diffusion length. cell configuration are not shown here since these data are not
In this letter, we propose a technique to analyze the mi- essential for the discussions in this work. The measurement
nority carrier diffusion length distribution under an as- was carried out at room temperature.
fabricated cell 共or even a module兲 structure by a simple and
quick photographic surveying method. Light emission from
solar cells under the forward bias was captured by a CCD
camera, and we found that the intensity distribution of emis-
sion clearly agreed with the mapping of the minority carrier
diffusion length in poly-Si active layers. Takamoto et al. re-
ported the application of electroluminescence in single-
crystalline InGaP / GaAs tandem solar cells, but they revealed
only the nonuniformity of the saturation current density and
the current leakage paths.5 Quantitative analysis of the rela-
tion between the emission intensity and the minority carrier
diffusion length was discussed. The feasibility of this tech-
nique was addressed showing the mapping of the minority

a兲
Electronic mail: [email protected] FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of an experimental setup.

0003-6951/2005/86共26兲/262108/3/$22.50 86, 262108-1 © 2005 American Institute of Physics


Downloaded 04 May 2013 to 193.1.100.108. This article is copyrighted as indicated in the abstract. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://apl.aip.org/about/rights_and_permissions
262108-2 Fuyuki et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 262108 共2005兲

FIG. 4. Distribution of the minority carrier diffusion length in the cell


shown in Fig. 3 measured by the LBIC method.
FIG. 2. Current/voltage characteristic of a measured sample.
current of 18.7, 13.5, and 6 mA/ cm2, respectively. The solid
straight lines show the fitting results by the least squares
A typical current/voltage characteristic of the sample is
method. Each of those intensities increases linearly with in-
shown in Fig. 2. Forward bias in a range of 0.4– 0.6 V was
creasing diffusion length almost from the origin as a starting
applied to run the current of 6 – 20 mA/ cm2. Figures 3 and 4
point. The emission intensity corresponds proportionally to
show the distributions of the emission intensity and the mi-
the diffusion length, which reveals that the photographic sur-
nority carrier diffusion length, respectively. The intensity and
veying of the emission intensity is an effective tool for ana-
the diffusion length are expressed in a gray scale in the
lyzing the diffusion length semiquantitatively. If we know
ranges of 10–50 共intensity, arbitrary unit兲 and 0–400 共diffu-
the absolute value of the diffusion length by, for example, the
sion length, ␮m兲, respectively. As can be clearly seen, the
LBIC method at a specific point, we can derive the absolute
distribution of the emission intensity agrees very well with
diffusion length mapping on total area from the spatial varia-
the mapping of the minority carrier diffusion length. The
tion of emission intensity.
relatively dark areas 共circled by A–F兲 in Fig. 3 coincided
The proportional relation between the emission intensity
with the short diffusion length parts in Fig. 4. This is the
and the minority carrier diffusion length is explained as fol-
experimental evidence of the photographic surveying of mi-
lows. The emission intensity is affected by many physical
nority carrier diffusion length using light emission from the
properties, such as the surface recombination velocity and
solar cell. In area F of Fig. 3, the coalescence of defects are
the recombination at defects, etc. However, for brief consid-
detected which shows the applicability of this probeless
eration, the emission intensity will be proportional to the
method to get the spatial information of the minority carrier
number of minority carriers 共electrons in p-Si layer兲, which
diffusion length.
is determined by the diffusion length following the first-order
Figure 5 shows the emission intensity dependence upon
approximation. We assume the localized effective diffusion
the measured diffusion length at the same measuring point
length Le, which involves the effect of defects, impurities,
on the cell. The absolute value of the diffusion length was
and the surface recombination velocity at the rear surface,
calibrated by the LBIC method mentioned earlier. The
etc. It varies spatially on the cell surface but is considered to
circles, triangles and squares are for the cases of the forward
be averaged and constant along the depth from the surface.
The number of electrons in the p layer at a distance x from
the p-side edge of the pn junction is expressed as follows:
n共x兲 = no exp共− x/Le兲, 共1兲
where no is the number of injected electrons at the p-side
edge of the pn junction. The total number of electrons N in
the p layer is shown by

FIG. 5. Emission intensity as a function of the diffusion length at the cor-


FIG. 3. Emission intensity distribution in polycrystalline Si cell under the responding measurement points. Solid lines are the fitting lines by the least-
forward bias. A schematic viewgraph of the sample is inset. squares method.
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262108-3 Fuyuki et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 262108 共2005兲

emission peak at 1150 nm can be seen. We could see a shoul-


der in a longer wavelength region. The peak shift was de-
rived to be about 60 meV by deconvoluting the spectrum, so
that the shoulder was considered to be a phonon sideband.
Detailed assignment will be done in the future by measure-
ment at low temperatures.
Photographic surveying of the minority carrier diffusion
length in polycrystalline silicon solar cells was proposed.
Light emission from the cell under the forward bias was
captured by a CCD camera. The emission intensity was
found to show the one-to-one relationship with the minority
carrier diffusion length, and a semiquantitative analysis
method of the diffusion length distribution was investigated.
Emission intensity increased linearly with the diffusion
FIG. 6. Typical emission spectrum. length, and a possible emission mechanism was discussed.
This effective technique can be applied not only to as-

N = no 冕 0
W
exp共− x/Le兲dx = noLe关1 − exp共− W/Le兲兴, 共2兲
fabricated cells, but also molded modules, and further devel-
opment correlating the analysis of emission with cell perfor-
mance will be needed.
where W is the thickness of the cell. When the term 1
exp共−W / Le兲 is considered to be much less than 1, N becomes J. A. Eikelboom, C. Leguijt, C. F. A. Frumau, and A. R. Burgers, Sol.
Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 36, 169 共1995兲.
nearly proportional to Le. The emission intensity will then be 2
O. Porre, M. Stemmer, and M. Pasquinelli, Mater. Sci. Eng., B 24, 188
proportional to the effective minority carrier diffusion length 共1994兲.
3
Le. The experimental results shown in Fig. 5 roughly fulfill N. Sakitani, K. Nishioka, T. Yagi, Y. Yamamoto, Y. Ishikawa, Y. Uraoka,
this relationship, but more accurate analysis is required. and T. Fuyuki, Solid State Phenom. 93, 351 共2003兲.
4
Figure 6 shows a typical emission spectrum measured by W. Seifert, M. Kittler, and J. Vanhellemont, Mater. Sci. Eng., B 42, 260
共1996兲.
an infrared-sensitive Ge photodetector at room temperature. 5
T. Takamoto, E. Ikeda, H. Kurita, and M. Yamaguchi, Proceedings of the
The dominant emission mechanism will be the band-to-band 14th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Barcelona, Spain,
radiative recombination with the phonon assist, as the main 1997.

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