Spatially resolved determination of the dark saturation current of silicon solar cells from electroluminescence images

We present a novel method to determine spatially resolved the dark saturation current of standard silicon solar cells. For this two electroluminescence images are taken at two different voltages. From these two images, first the spatial voltage distribution can be calculated. Second by applying the Laplacian to the voltage image from Ohm's law and the continuity equation, the current through the device at a certain position can be determined. Knowing the local current through the device, the local voltage, and the emitter sheet resistance allows to determine the local dark saturation current. The clue of this method is to cope with the noise by using an appropriate noise reduction algorithm. By simulating electroluminescence images with realistic noise and known dark saturation current we demonstrate the applicability of the method with our noise reduction algorithm. Experimentally we compare our method with spectral response light beam induced current on multicrystalline solar cell. (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3132827]