Influence of photon reabsorption on quasi-steady-state photoluminescence measurements on crystalline silicon

Abstract

The influence of reabsorption of spontaneously emitted photons within silicon samples on quasi-steady-state photoluminescence lifetime measurements and on implied current voltage curves obtained from photoluminescence is analyzed. It is shown that experimental artifacts resulting from reabsorption can generally be expected to be small and that they are expected only if the relative carrier density profile varies strongly with injection level. Such strong variations in the relative carrier density profile are shown to be expected only if the effective minority carrier lifetime varies with injection level over the range from 1 to 50 μ s which even then results in an under- or overestimation of the effective minority carrier lifetime by less than 20%.