Electron radiation–induced degradation of GaAs solar cells with different architectures. (8th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gruginskie, Natasha; Cappelluti, Federica; Bauhuis, Gerard J.; Mulder, Peter; Haverkamp, Erik J.; Vlieg, Elias; Schermer, John J.
• Is Part Of: Progress in photovoltaics. Volume 28:Number 4(2020)
• Page Start: 266
• Page End: 278
• Publication Date: 2020-01-08
• Subjects: device modeling -- electron radiation -- GaAs solar cell -- space application -- thin‐film solar cells; Solar cells -- Periodicals; Photovoltaic cells -- Periodicals; Solar power plants -- Periodicals; 621.31245
• DOI: 10.1002/pip.3224
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1062-7995

Abstract

Abstract: The effects of electron irradiation on the performance of GaAs solar cells with a range of architectures is studied. Solar cells with shallow and deep junction designs processed on the native wafer as well as into a thin‐film were irradiated by 1‐MeV electrons with fluence up to 1×10 15 e − /cm 2 . The degradation of the cell performance due to irradiation was studied experimentally and theoretically using model simulations, and a coherent set of minority carriers' lifetime damage constants was derived. The solar cell performance degradation primarily depends on the junction depth and the thickness of the active layers, whereas the material damage shows to be insensitive to the cell architecture and fabrication steps. The modeling study has pointed out that besides the reduction of carriers lifetime, the electron irradiation strongly affects the quality of hetero‐interfaces, an effect scarcely addressed in the literature. It is demonstrated that linear increase with the electron fluence of the surface recombination velocity at the front and rear hetero‐interfaces of the solar cell accurately describes the degradation of the spectral response and of the dark current characteristic upon irradiation. A shallow junction solar cell processed into a thin‐film device has the lowest sensitivity to electron radiation, showing an efficiency at the end of life equivalent to 82% of the beginning‐of‐life efficiency.