The Analysis of the Electrical and Photovoltaic Properties of Cr/p-Si Structures Using Current-Voltage Measurements

Abstract

In this work, the electrical and photovoltaic properties of Cr/p -Si structures were investigated using forward and reverse bias current-voltage (I - V ) measurements in dark and under illumination conditions (100 mW/cm2) at room temperature. The forward and reverse bias current–voltage (I - V ) characteristics of the Cr/p-Si structures were analyzed by the thermionic emission theory. For this, the main parameters such as ideality factors (n), barrier heights (Φbo), series resistances (RS), and reverse-saturation currents obtained from different methods using forward and reverse bias I - V measurements were investigated in under dark and illumination conditions at room temperature, respectively. Furthermore, the photovoltaic parameters such as short circuit current (Isc), open circuit voltage (V oc), fill factor (FF) and conversion efficiency (ηP) were acquired as 7.43 × 10-3 A/cm2, 0.260 V, 61.5% and 1.18% under 100 mW/cm2 light intensity, respectively, and these values are near to a photodiode. Experimental results show that all electrical parameters were found to be strong function of illumination density. Also, this result confirms that Cr/p-type-Si diode can be used as a photodiode in optoelectronic applications.