However, much work is required to reduce the cost and improve the conversion efficiency if these devices are to compete with existing power generation technologies. In pursuit of this goal, new material candidates are being actively considered including amorphous Silicon, Cd/Te, polymer, CIGS and dye sensitised solar cells.

The technical note (available below) describes how Solartron electrical characterization products can be used to evaluate solid-state and liquid electrolyte solar cells. Our discussions will include Current Voltage (I-V), Capacitance Voltage (C-V) and techniques based upon impedance.

Solartron new MTS system

Determination of solar cell parameters

Materials scientists often characterise solar cells in terms of simple circuit analysis; these typically include a p-n junction diode, a shunt resistance and a series resistor. Therefore, electrical characterization using a combination of DC and AC techniques allows the scientist to measure each of these components within the cell.

Furthermore, different cell chemistries are at various stages of development and therefore some novel systems still require a significant effort in understanding the underlying physics of the devices.

The full application note below describes both DC and AC techniques, that are offered by Solartron, and how these techniques can be used to extract different pieces of information that are critical towards the development of more efficient and lower cost cells.

Request this application note

Figure 1: Forward bias I-V curve for a solid-state solar cell device including Power curve derived from I-V data