How does cosmic rays affect multijunction solar cells

Abstract

Numerical simulation of solar cells degradation has become a hot topic in the researches over the past few years, especially in the space industry, where photovoltaic is the main power source and high-energy radiations are found. In this paper, we present a numerical model to predict the radiation response of a multi-junction solar cell, resulting from ionization and excitation of semiconductor's atoms by charged cosmic rays. The developed model is based on the drift-diffusion semiconductor equations, in which we incorporate some additional terms to include the irradiation-induced defects. These additional terms are modeled vias the Shockley-Red-Hall theory. In addition, this model uses the quantum mechanical Bethe-Bloch formalism to describe the reaction of both heavy and light charged particles with semiconductor materials, forming the solar cells.