Abstract

We describe experimental data and theoretical studies of response time measurements in sandwich structures Al—CdS—Au. The speed of response is about 2 μs in a large sensitivity range. A theoretical simplified model shows that this response time is limited by the majority carrier lifetime. The concept of photoconductive gain G which represents the ratio between the carrier lifetime τn and the transit time tn seems to be particularly well adapted to describe specific properties of very thin photovoltaïc cells.