Rapid testing of external quantum efficiency using LED solar simulators

A new generation of solar simulators is based on light emitting diode illumination sources. These measurement systems offer the opportunity to adjust the light spectrum as close as possible to the AM1.5G reference spectrum. Additionally, they provide the technical basis to combine power measurements with a spectral resolved analysis. Such an application is the determination of the quantum efficiency, which results in valuable additional cell information such as front and rear surface recombination, diffusion length, or emitter dead layer thickness. In this work, a fast method to determine the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of a solar cell using a LED solar simulator is presented. The measurement time of our LED-EQE approach could be reduced to less than half a second as no mechanical parts such as monochromators are involved. Due to the finite spectral band-width of the LEDs an adapted data analysis approach has been developed, which leads to results that show excellent agreement with standard EQE measurements.