The photoconductivity-open circuit voltage relation in a-Si:H solar cells

Recent theoretical work has suggested that a direct analytic relationship exists between the photoconductivity of the i-layer material of a p-i-n a-Si:h solar cell and its open circuit voltage. With such a relation, the use of photoconductivity as a quality control tool in production was proposed. This paper investigates the assumption implicit in the derivation of the relationship, and shows that the corrections to the basic result are so large that in general the photoconductivity to dark conductivity ratio will not be useful as a predictor of cell voltage or efficiency.