The study of 1 MeV electron irradiation induced defects in N-type and P-type monocrystalline silicon

Abstract

Despite extensive use of GaAs cells in space, silicon cells are still being used. The reason is that not only they provide a good compromise between efficiency and cost, but also some countries do not have the required technology for manufacturing GaAs. Behavior of a silicon cell under any levels of charged particle irradiation could be deducted from the results of a damage equivalent 1MeV electron irradiation using the NASA EQflux open source software package. In this paper for the first time, we have studied the behavior of a silicon cell before and after 1MeV electron irradiation with 1014, 1015 and 1016 electrons-cm−2 fluences, using SILVACO TCAD simulation software package. Simulation was carried out at room temperature under AM0 condition. Results reveal that open circuit voltage and efficiency decrease after irradiation while short circuit current shows a slight increase in the trend around 5 × 1016 electrons-cm−2, and short circuit current loss plays an important role on efficiency changes rather than open circuit voltage.