Static and dynamic characterization of P-N junction solar cells

Abstract

This work presents an accurate, fast and automated technique for characterizing p-n junction single crystal solar cells. A PC-based system was constructed to measure the static conditions - current-voltage chara~teristics, and dynamic characteristics - capacitance-voltagecharacteristics in the reverse bias region and impedance.frequency-voltage characteristics. in the forward region. Different techniques were used to extract the model parameters as well as the most important physical and technologl~al parameters. The fiye pa!ameters single diode lumped model was used to fit the measured I-V data under AMI illumination. The extracted parameters of the lumped model were used as an input for the PSPICE program to simulate the solar cell cparacteristic., Both measurement and extraction of parameters were carried out on-line under the direct control of a personal computer. The developed system exhibits reliable performance and its use can be extended for characterizing other semiconductor devices.