Role of Doping Dependent Radiative and Non-radiative Recombination in Determining the Limiting Efficiencies of Silicon Solar Cells

We show that increasing the bulk doping in a silicon based solar cell can increase the fraction of photo generated carriers that recombine radiatively at open circuit condition. This increases the maximum achievable open circuit voltage (Voc) in a solar cell At higher doping levels auger recombination and band gap narrowing effects dominate leading to a reduction in Voc. Therefore radiative and non-radiative recombinations at Voc determines the optimum doping of the bulk to maximize the performance especially in thin solar cells with increased surface area due to surface texturing.