Saturation in solar cells from ultra-fast pulsed-laser illumination

We investigate the potential saturation of a silicon solar cell in response to excitation from continuous-wave and ultra-fast pulsed lasers of equivalent average optical power. Because ultra-fast pulsed sources, such as the super-continuum laser, have very high peak powers, they may be expected to cause solar cells to exhibit nonlinear and saturation effects at much lower irradiance levels compared to continuous-wave lasers and solar simulator lamps. Our experimental results strongly suggest that this is not the case, and that ultra-fast lasers do not intrinsically give rise to enhanced nonlinearities caused by their pulsed nature.