Quasi-Fermi level splitting evaluation based on electroluminescence analysis in multiple quantum-well solar cells for investigating cell performance under concentrated light

Insertion of InGaAs/GaAsP strain-balanced multiple quantum wells (MQWs) into i-regions of GaAs p-i-n solar cells show several advantages against GaAs bulk p-i-n solar cells. Particularly under high-concentration sunlight condition, enhancement of the open-circuit voltage with increasing concentration ratio in thin-barrier MQW cells has been reported to be more apparent than that in GaAs bulk cells. However, investigation of the MQW cell mechanisms in terms of I-V characteristics under high-concentration sunlight suffers from the increase in cell temperature and series resistance. In order to investigate the mechanism of the steep enhancement of open-circuit voltage in MQW cells under high-concentration sunlight without affected by temperature, the quasi-Fermi level splitting was evaluated by analyzing electroluminescence (EL) from a cell. Since a cell under current injection with a density J_injhas similar excess carrier density to a cell under concentrated sunlight with an equivalent short-circuit current J_sc = J_inj, EL measurement with varied J_inj can approximately evaluate a cell performance under a variety of concentration ratio. In addition to the evaluation of quasi-Fermi level splitting, the external luminescence efficiency was also investigated with the EL measurement. The MQW cells showed higher external luminescence efficiency than the GaAs reference cells especially under high-concentration condition. The results suggest that since the MQW region can trap and confine carriers, the localized excess carriers inside the cells make radiative recombination more dominant.