Impact of excess carrier profile in the luminescent emission and detection of silicon solar cells

Abstract

Luminescence emission based characterisation has undergo a great evolution since its first applications in photovoltaics, more than 15 years ago. Two-dimensional measurements gather interest from the very beginning, due to the opportunity of detecting process related defects without the need of a detailed quantification. Qualitative measurements replaced quantitative ones, one at a time. Some approximations were accepted and the effect of some mechanisms were considered irrelevant. Now that luminescence based characterisation is more mature, mechanisms like blurring, smearing, photon recycling etc. are taken into consideration. In this work excitation with different wavelength, and more in general, the effect of different excess carrier profiles in the front and rear (related to the excitation side) detection are quantified.