Transient photocurrent

Transient photocurrent (TPC) is a measurement technique, typically employed in the physics of thin film semiconductors.

TPC allows to study the time-dependent (on a microsecond time scale) extraction of charges generated by photovoltaic effect in semiconductor devices, such as solar cells.

“Light off” measurements show how the charges decay after the pulse is switched off.

Quite often, TPC measurements help to build “drift-diffusion” model which reflects trapping and detrapping of the photogenerated charges and the quality of contact between different layers.

TPC allows varying different measurement parameters, such as intensity or length of the light pulse, applied voltage, etc.