I am getting frustrated because i am pretty sure the qty of electrons is conserved so at some point equilibrium needs to be reached. I read this paper on diffusion lengths and i got confused so i started watching this older lecture about short and open circuit recombinations. My first impression is that the recombination rate (or qty of electrons coming back into the cell) depends on some thickness of material at the very least.
I was definitely wrong about how the whole loops work but that was me being dumb. Again, this is very out of my brain territory. I used to love this stuff though.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
I’m not sure I understand the confusion. The material thickness does matter in that thinner materials will resist current flow due to a lack of charge carriers meaning each must travel faster, which means that more charge separation is required for a given recombination rate or current.
If the charge required is too high (more than the potential difference across the depletion zone) then the build up will prevent charge separation after excitation. They will recombine in the depletion zone making a bunch of heat and burning out the cell.
Maybe that’s the thing? super thin films under too much irradiation or load cooking themselves due to inability to move excited charges away fast enough?