High and low-energy proton radiation damage in p/n InP MOCVD solar cells

✍ Scribed by George Rybicki; Irv Weinberg; Dave Scheiman; Carlos Vargas-Aburto; Roberto Uribe

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 641 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1062-7995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-159x(199603/04)4:2<101::aid-pip126>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

Indium phosphide p f l n l n f solar cells, fabricated by metal organic chemical vapor deposition, were irradiated with 0.2-Me V and 10-Me Vprotons to a fluenee of ld3

The power output degradation, I-V behavior, carrier concentration and defect concentration were observed at intermediate points throughout the irradiations. The 0.2-Me V proton-irradiated solar cells suflered much greater and more rapid degradation in power output than those irradiated with 10 Me V protons. The eficiency losses were accompanied by larger increases in the recombination currents in the 0.2-Me V protonirradiated solar cells. The low-energy proton irradiations also had a larger impact on the series resistance of the solar cells. Despite the radiation-induced damage, the carrier concentration in the base of the solar cells showed no reduction after 10-Me V or 0.2-Me V proton irradiations and even increased during irradiation with 0.2-Me V protons. In a deep-level transient spectroscopy study of the irradiated samples, the minority carrier defects H4 and H5 at E, + 0.33 and E, + 0.52 eV and the majority carrier defects E7