On the use of voltage measurements for determining carrier lifetime at high illumination intensity

Illumination intensity dependent open circuit voltage measurements (commonly known as Suns-Voc) are often used to measure the current-voltage characteristic of a solar cell without the impact of series resistance. Deviations have previously been reported between Suns-Voc measurements and contactless measurements, such as injection-dependent photoluminescence (Suns-PL) at high illumination levels. These deviations are analyzed in detail in this paper and shown to cause significant errors when converting Suns-Voc data to injectiondependent minority carrier lifetimes. Experimental data are used to demonstrate the magnitude of this effect for a range of different solar cell types.