Paper: Identifying the Real Minority Carrier Lifetime in Nonideal Semiconductors: A Case Study of Kesterite Materials

Post author:Jesus Capistran
Post published:April 25, 2019

Title: Identifying the Real Minority Carrier Lifetime in Nonideal Semiconductors: A Case Study of Kesterite MaterialsAuthors: Charles J. Hages,* Alex Redinger, Sergiu Levcenko, Hannes Hempel, Mark J. Koeper, Rakesh Agrawal, Dieter Greiner, Christian A. Kaufmann, and Thomas Unold*Link: Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 1700167 (Cited by 16) Abstract: Time‐resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) is a powerful characterization technique to study carrier dynamics and quantify absorber quality in semiconductors. The minority carrier lifetime, which is critically important for high‐performance solar cells, is often derived from TRPL analysis. However, here it is shown that various nonideal absorber properties can dominate the TRPL signal making reliable extraction of the…

Video: Analysis of techniques for measuring carrier recombination lifetime

Post author:Jesus Capistran
Post published:April 24, 2019

Author: Dr. Richard K. Ahrenkiel is a Research Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.Abstract Rapid, accurate and contactless measurement of the recombination lifetime is a very important activity in photovoltaics. The excess carrier lifetime (Δn(t)) is the most critical and variable parameter in the development of photovoltaic materials. Device performance can be accurately predicted from the lifetime measurement of the starting material. However, there is no single measurement that directly measures the bulk lifetime as all measurements are based on a device model. A primary issue is that the lifetime is…