Study of minority carrier diffusion length in multicrystalline silicon solar cells using photoassisted Kelvin probe force microscopy

We evaluated the minority carrier diffusion length in multicrystalline silicon solar cells by means of photclassisted Kelvin probe force microscopy to investigate the influence of the multicrystalline material grains and the grain boundaries oil solar cell performance. We observed a reduction in the diffusion length in the vicinity of the grain boundary and differences in the diffusion lengths between grains even when considering the influence of lateral diffusion. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3264081]