I'm confused about excess carriers and intrinsic carriers and minority-majority carriers, I couldn't find an acceptable answer in my researches. If you have experience about this field please help me.
In a solar cell, recombination is the process by which light-generated excess carriers get recombined.
In a solar cell (an n-p photodiode with the n layer on top) the majority carriers on the top n layer (where light is absorbed) are electrons. This happens because the Fermi level is shifted up to the conduction band and the free electrons n concentration is higher than the hole p concentration (minority carriers) that remains approximately at the intrinsic level p0. When light is absorbed in the top n layer more electrons are produced (because the fermi level is shifted upwards), therefore the nonequilibrium carriers are the photoelectrons (free electrons produced by light absoption on the top layer).
The variation of conductivity sigma of the n layer is then Delta(sigma) = e[mu(n) + mu(p)]*n(photo). This is named photoconductivity.
d n(photo)/dt = g + G - R
g - optical generation rate
G - thermal generation rate
R - recombination rate
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