The ideality factor (also called the emissivity factor) is a fitting parameter that describes how closely the diode's behavior matches that predicted by theory, which assumes the p-n junction of the diode is an infinite plane and no recombination occurs within the space-charge region. A perfect match to theory is indicated when . When recombination in the space-charge region dominate other recombination, however, . The effect of changing ideality factor independently of all other parameters is shown for a crystalline silicon solar cell in the I-V curves displayed in the figure to the right.
Most solar cells, which are quite large compared to conventional diodes, well approximate an infinite plane and will usually exhibit near-ideal behavior under standard test conditions (). Under certain operating conditions, however, device operation may be dominated by recombination in the space-charge region. This is characterized by a significant increase in I as well as an increase in ideality factor to . The latter tends to increase solar cell output voltage while the former acts to erode it. The net effect, therefore, is a combination of the increase in voltage shown for increasing n in the figure to the right and the decrease in voltage shown for increasing I in the figure above. Typically, I is the more significant factor and the result is a reduction in voltage.
Sometimes, the ideality factor is observed to be greater than 2, which is generally attributed to the presence of Schottky diode or heterojunction in the solar cell. The presence of a heterojunction offset reduces the collection efficiency of the solar cell and may contribute to low fill-factor.