Abstract
The highest efficiency solar cells provide both excellent voltage and current. Of these, the open-circuit voltage (Voc) is more frequently viewed as an indicator of the material quality. However, since the V oc also depends on the band gap of the material, the difference between the band gap and the Voc is a better metric for comparing material quality of unlike materials. To take this one step further, since Voc also depends on the shape of the absorption edge, we propose to use the ultimate metric: the difference between the measured Voc and the Voc calculated from the external quantum efficiency using a detailed balance approach. This metric is less sensitive to changes in cell design and definition of band gap. The paper defines how to implement this metric and demonstrates how it can be useful in tracking improvements in V oc, especially as Voc approaches its theoretical maximum.
Original language | American English |
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Pages | 1327-1331 |
Number of pages | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2012 |
Event | 38th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2012 - Austin, TX, United States Duration: 3 Jun 2012 → 8 Jun 2012 |
Conference
Conference | 38th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2012 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Austin, TX |
Period | 3/06/12 → 8/06/12 |
Bibliographical note
See NREL/CP-5200-54120 for preprintNREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5200-57534
Keywords
- detailed balance
- performance
- photovoltaic cells
- recombination
- voltage metric