A new approach to determine radiative recombination lifetime in quantum well solar cells

Abstract

In this paper, the authors present and extend on an existing model, which has been developed to determine the radiative recombination lifetimes in quantum well solar cells. Given the fact that recombination reduces cell performance, the main future use of this new model is to aid in optimisation of cell designs and increase cell efficiency. In this work the authors introduce a coefficient defined as the delta factor which is based on material parameters into the existing model. The introduction of this factor into the existing model has shown an improvement in radiative recombination lifetime determination of approximately 11% when comparison is made with the previous model. This has lead to an overall average improvement in lifetime determination of approximately 9% when comparisons are made between the new model and experimental data. This is a significant improvement in lifetime determination, which will benefit cell designers.