Comparison of two methods for short circuit current measurement of large size solar cell

Abstract

The differential spectral responsivity (DSR) measurement and the solar simulator based current to voltage characterisation methods are two accurate methods for measuring the short circuit current, a critical parameter, of a solar cell under standard testing conditions. For the calibration of World Photovoltaic Scale (WPVS) reference solar cell with small size (20 mm x 20 mm), the measurement results using these two methods are agreed well within 1%. But for the calibration of large size (e.g. 156 mm x 156 mm) of solar cell, the measurement results using two methods are not agreed well and their deviation could be more than 10 %. In DSR method, the short circuit current of a solar cell is determined through measuring its relative irradiance spectral responsivity in spectral range from 280 nm to 1200 nm and its absolute irradiance responsivity at wavelength of 650 nm by reference standard photodiodes. As the detective area of large size solar cell (detective area: 156 mm x 156 mm) is much bigger than that of standard photodiodes (detective area: 12.56 mm²), the spatial uniformity of irradiance of modulated monochromatic probe beam on the test solar cell and the standard photodiode is critical for calculation of absolute irradiance responsivity of the test solar cell. The correction for the calculation must be done according to the measured spatial uniformity of probe beam and the detective areas of the test solar cell and standard photodiodes. The experiment showed the correction factor and its uncertainty are smaller if the detective areas difference between the test solar cell and the standard is smaller. Based on this observation, a standard solar cell (detective area: 20 mm x 20 mm) instead of standard photodiodes was used to calibrate absolute irradiance responsivity of the test solar cell (detective area: 156 mm x 156 mm) at wavelength of 650 nm. After such improvement, measurement results using two different methods agree well about 3 % for the large size solar cell. The details of this comparison will be discussed in the paper.