Improvements in numerical modelling of highly injected crystalline silicon solar cells

We numerically model crystalline silicon concentrator cells with the inclusion of band gap narrowing (BGN) caused by injected free carriers. In previous studies, the revised room-temperature value of the intrinsic carrier density, ni=1.00×1010 cm−3, was inconsistent with the other material parameters of highly injected silicon. In this paper, we show that high-injection experiments can be described consistently with the revised value of ni if free-carrier induced BGN is included, and that such BGN is an important effect in silicon concentrator cells. The new model presented here significantly improves the ability to model highly injected silicon cells with a high level of precision.