IV Characterization of Solar Cells using Elite-EDC

Introduction

Identifying electrical properties and performance of solar cells is important to researchers and manufacturers who contribute to improving the cell efficiency and energy conversion. Current-voltage (IV) characterization of solar cells is a generic method to verify the performance of cells, which provides several important parameters, including short-circuit current (I_sc), open-circuit voltage (V_oc), max power (P_max= I_max ✕ V_max), current of max power (I_max), voltage of max power (V_max), fill factor (FF), energy conversion efficiency (η), series resistance (R_s) and shunt resistance (R_sh). Figure 1 shows a typical I-V curve of solar cell in the dark or illuminated environments. The short-circuit current (I_sc) is the current through a solar cell when the voltage across the cell is zero (short circuited, V=0). When the current through the cell is zero (I=0), the related voltage here is referred to as the open-circuit voltage (V_oc), which is the maximum voltage of the cell. The max power point (V_max, I_max) indicates the maximum power generated by solar cells.

Figure 1. Dark and illuminated I-V curves of a solar cell.

Figure 2. Equivalent circuit of an Elite-EDC connect to a solar cell for I-V characterization.

Figure 3. Schematic illustration (a) and photograph (b) of measuring I-V characteristics of solar cells using Elite- EDC. (solar cell part No: 109985, Centenary).

Results

Figure 4 shows the result of I-V characterization of No: 109985 solar cells using Elite-EDC.

Figure 4. Dark (orange) and light (blue) I-V curves of a solar cell using Elite-EDC.