Considerations in the extraction of physically significant parameters for various c-Si cell architectures

Equivalent circuit models are often applied to experimental current-voltage (I-V) data of solar cells to quantify key features of device performance. The appropriate model to use is heavily dependent on the device architecture and the properties of each material layer. With the application of an appropriate model, physical meaning can be applied to each of the fitting parameters, to better describe the underlying device physics. This work investigates various methods in which extraction of physically significant fitting parameters can be achieved and identifies the limitations and special consideration required for specific crystalline silicon (c-Si) cell architectures. I-V characteristics of large sample sets of p-type monocrystalline and multicrystalline Al-BSF cells and p-type PERC are evaluated to provide statistical data on the ability of various electrical models to describe device performance by providing accurate, repeatable and meaningful model parameters.