Improved empirical method for calculating short circuit current density images of silicon solar cells from saturation current density images and vice versa

•PC1D simulations on Si cells are performed for varying bulk lifetime.•The dependence of Jsc on J01 is well-defined.•This dependence can be approximated by a physically founded function.•The fitting parameters allow to calculate Jsc from J01 and vice versa.•This allows to derive Jsc images from DLIT images.

An empirical dependence of the short circuit current density Jsc as a function of the dark saturation current density J01 is proposed, which describes this dependence down to a bulk lifetime of 1 ns. This method avoids artifacts, which appear when applying the previously proposed quadratic dependence. The parameters of the new dependence are fitted to PC1D simulations and to experimental LBIC results for various wavelengths and AM 1.5 for a typical industrial BSF-type solar cell and a PERC cell. This dependence can also be used to calculate J01 images from LBIC-based Jsc images. It turns out that this method is more reliable in BSF than in PERC cells.