Space solar cells radiation hardness is of fundamental importance in view of the future missions towards harsh radiation environment (like e.g. missions to Jupiter) and for the new spacecraft using electrical propulsion. In this paper we report the radiation data for triple junction (TJ) solar cells and related component cells. Triple junction solar cells, InGaP top cells and GaAs middle cells degrade after electron radiation as expected. With proton irradiation, a high spread in the remaining factors was observed, especially for the TJ and bottom cells. Very surprising was the germanium bottom junction that showed very high degradation after protons whereas it is quite stable against electrons. Radiation results have been analyzed by means of the Displacement Damage Dose method and DLTS spectroscopy.
@article{arxiv.1704.06495,
title = {Displacement Damage dose and DLTS Analyses on Triple and Single Junction solar cells irradiated with electrons and protons},
author = {Carsten Baur and Roberta Campesato and Mariacristina Casale and Massimo Gervasi and Enos Gombia and Erminio Greco and Aldo Kingma and Pier Giorgio Rancoita and Davide Rozza and Mauro Tacconi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.06495},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
Abstract accepted for poster session at 2017 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference, July 17-21, New Orleans