Quantitative photoluminescence (PL) or electroluminescence (EL) experiments can be used
to probe fast and in a non-destructive way the current-voltage (IV) characteristics of
individual subcells in a multi-junction device, information that is, otherwise, not available.
PL-based IV has the advantage that it is contactless and can be performed even in partly
finished devices, allowing for an early diagnosis of the expected performance of the solar
cells in the production environment. In this work we simulate the PL- and EL-based IV
curves of single junction solar cells to assess their validity compared with the true IV curve
and identify injection regimes where artefacts might appear due to the limited in-plane
carrier transport in the solar cell layers. We model the whole photovoltaic device as a
network of sub-circuits, each of them describing the solar cell behaviour using the two diode
model. The sub-circuits are connected to the neighbouring ones with a resistor, representing
the in-plane transport in the cell. The resulting circuit, involving several thousand subcircuits,
is solved using SPICE.