High-cycle fatigue behavior of ultra-thin Ag interconnectors in GaAs cell arrays for deep space exploration: temperature cycling and impact of wind and dust particles

The ultra-thin Ag interconnectors used for GaAs solar cell arrays applications face numerous challenges in deep space exploration missions, such as extreme temperature variations and the impact of wind and dust particles. In this study, finite element analysis was employed to investigate the effects of temperature cycling, as well as the impact of wind and dust particles. These analyses helped identify the loading modes of the GaAs cell Ag interconnectors with stress relief loops, specifically tensile-tensile fatigue and dynamic bending fatigue, and locate high-risk sites for potential failure. Subsequently, the fatigue damage behaviors of the ultra-thin Ag interconnector foils under tensile-tensile and dynamic bending fatigue tests were carefully examined. Finally, fatigue life at high-risk failure sites was quantitatively estimated based on the experimental fatigue data. The findings would have important implications for understanding fatigue damage behavior of micron-scale metal interconnector foils and for engineering design of GaAs solar cell interconnectors with long-term fatigue reliability in hash space environments.