THE DETAILED BALANCE PRINCIPLE AND THE RECIPROCITY THEOREM BETWEEN PHOTOCARRIER COLLECTION AND DARK CARRIER DISTRIBUTION IN SOLAR-CELLS

Authors
Citation
U. Rau et R. Brendel, THE DETAILED BALANCE PRINCIPLE AND THE RECIPROCITY THEOREM BETWEEN PHOTOCARRIER COLLECTION AND DARK CARRIER DISTRIBUTION IN SOLAR-CELLS, Journal of applied physics, 84(11), 1998, pp. 6412-6418
Citations number
12
Categorie Soggetti
Physics, Applied
Journal title
ISSN journal
00218979
Volume
84
Issue
11
Year of publication
1998
Pages
6412 - 6418
Database
ISI
SICI code
0021-8979(1998)84:11<6412:TDBPAT>2.0.ZU;2-V
Abstract
It is shown that a recently described general relationship between the local collection efficiency of solar cells and the dark carrier conce ntration (reciprocity theorem) directly follows from the principle of detailed balance. We derive the relationship for situations where tran sport of charge carriers occurs between discrete states as well as for the situation where electronic transport is described in terms of con tinuous functions. Combining both situations allows to extend the rang e of applicability of the reciprocity theorem to all types of solar ce lls, including, e.g., metal-insulator-semiconductor-type, electrochemi cal solar cells, as well as the inclusion of the impurity photovoltaic effect. We generalize the theorem further to situations where the occ upation probability of electronic states is governed by Fermi-Dirac st atistics instead of Boltzmann statistics as underlying preceding work. In such a situation the reciprocity theorem is restricted to small de partures from equilibrium. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0 021-8979(98)07023-6].