The operation of a crystalline silicon solar cell was studied by a methodology based on collection efficiency. The collection efficiencies of the base, emitter, and depletion layers were determined separately using numerical solutions. The quantum efficiency was then determined by the reciprocity theorem. It is shown that the model can provide useful new insights and can be used to extract device parameters by fitting the modelled results to experimental data. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.