Radiation hard and gravimetric efficient thin film InP solar cells

Abstract

We present characterization results of advanced prototypes of InP based thin film solar cells designed to be gravimetrically efficient (high power to weight ratio), and radiation hardened, especially with respect to operations in orbits flie in the "van Allen Belt", i.e. at an altitude of 3200km, where the radiation is extremely intense. Our specially designed cells help achieve high radiation resistance by collecting photogenerated carriers by drift due to the electrical fields rather than by usual carrier diffusion associated with normal p-n junction solar cells. High-energy particle irradiation damage to this thin film InP cells has been studied. The result shows that the short circuit current is not affected by high fluence of 1-MeV proton irradiation.