Determination of the dark and illuminated characteristic parameters of a solar cell from I-V characteristics

Abstract

The authors present a systematic procedure to obtain the main parameters which characterize a commercial solar cell, both in dark conditions (series and shunt resistances and recombination and diffusion saturation currents) and also under illumination (short circuit current, open circuit voltage and fill factor). All the measurements needed are made with simple and inexpensive apparatus and the calculations are straightforward. Throughout the work the didactic aspect of the experiments was kept in mind. The common approximation of using a single exponential term with a diode factor n (different from 1 or 2) to describe the junction behaviour is not appropriate even using common laboratory multimeters if the measurements are taken carefully.