Proton irradiation effects on GaInP/GaAs/Ge triple junction cells

Abstract

GaAs solar cells, with a higher transfer efficiency, is regarded as a good candidate for the space applications. For the better applications to the deep space exploration, it is necessary to explore its irradiation effects. Here, the effects of irradiation energy and irradiation fluence on the degradation of solar cells were studied, and the results show that proton irradiation with a fluence of 5 × 1011/cm2 has slightly effect on the performance the cell, with further increasing fluence the quantum efficiency decreases; and the degradation of quantum efficiency is manly from long wavelength band, meaning that the displacement damage mainly occurs in middle-junction GaAs cells under relatively higher fluence of proton irradiation. In comparison with the irradiation fluence, the effects of the irradiation energy on the degradation to GaInP cell and GaAs sub-cell are relatively weaker. Non-ionizing energy loss and TCAD simulations were carried out to explain the mechanism behind.