Abstract
Experimental investigations of the photovoltaic properties of metal-silicon Schottky barriers are reported, in which edge collection of the photocurrent is dominant as in the majority-carrier grating solar cells proposed by Green. Both elemental metals and alloy Schottky electrodes, and both crystalline and semicrystalline cast silicon have been studied. The superposition principle for dark currents and photocurrents is shown unambiguously to be violated, and the effects of grain-boundary recombination and shunt resistance are identified. Limitations to the operation of these devices above the semiempirical limit of continuous Schottky barrier solar cells is seriously compromised by enhanced space-charge recombination current. This results from the large photocurrent densities for low contact area/active area ratios. The treatment of the space-charge recombination mechanism under optical illumination follows the normal Sah-Noyce-Shockley approach, but we introduce here a built-in “recombination potential” to encompass the non-zero recombination for short-circuit conditions.
Published Version
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