Numerical analysis of bulk diffusion length in thin-film c-Si solar cells

We propose a novel technique of determining relationship between effective and bulk diffusion length of single-crystalline Si (c-Si) thin-film solar cells using two-dimensional device simulator. In addition, bulk diffusion length was obtained using the result of the simulation. Effective diffusion length was measured by LBIC method in order to presume bulk diffusion length of c-Si thin film. We obtained 6.7 μm for effective diffusion length of c-Si thin-film solar cell whose thickness was about 7 μm. We compared the result of measurement and simulation, bulk diffusion length of c-Si thin film prepared by CVD method was estimated more than 30 μm and recombination velocity was presumed <10⁴ cm/s for front surface and 10³ cm/s for rear surface of the cell.