The accurate measure of semiconductor electrical properties is a fundamental step for the
design and the correct operation of any electronic device. The electrical performance of any device will
depend on how the carriers move inside the semiconductor lattice. The measure of the resistivity, the
concentration of shallow and deep states, the charge carrier mobility, etc., allow for the design of new
and advanced functionalities and for improvement in current device technology. In this chapter we will
give a brief overview of the main electronic transport coefficients and experimental techniques used to
investigate semiconductor materials and the main solar cell parameters. We have limited our attention to
the most common and reliable techniques. Our work has been organised into seven sections. The first
and second sections define the conductivity and the mobility of any material in terms of its band structure
and looks at some semiconductor properties and the material doping. The third and fourth sections
illustrate the main scattering mechanisms of charge carriers in a semiconductor and several experimental
techniques to measure thin film resistivity, respectively. The fifth section introduces the Hall effect and
defines the Hall coefficient and the Hall mobility, with a description of an experimental method to
measure these. In the sixth section we report a brief analysis of deep state defects and we describe the
DLTS technique to reveal them in a semiconductor lattice. Finally, in the seventh section we describe the
current-voltage technique commonly used to measure the main solar cell parameters.
Keywords: Electrical Conductors, Resistance measurement, Conductivity tensor, charge carrier
scattering, Hall mobility, Hall coefficient, van der Pauw geometry, Deep Level Transient
Spectroscopy, Current-voltage, Solar cell electrical parameters.
