Diffusion lengths in irradiated N/P InP-on-Si solar cells
- Naval Research Lab., Washington, DC (United States)
Indium phosphide (InP) solar cells are being made on silicon (Si) wafers (InP/Si) to take advantage of both the radiation-hardness properties of the InP solar cell and the light weight and low cost of Si wafers compared to InP or germanium (Ge) wafers. The InP/Si cell application is for long duration and/or high radiation orbit space missions. InP/Si cells have higher absolute efficiency after a high radiation dose than gallium arsenide (GaAs) or silicon (Si) solar cells. In this work, base electron diffusion lengths in the N/P cell are extracted from measured AMO short-circuit photocurrent at various irradiation levels out to an equivalent 1 MeV fluence of 1017 1 MeV electrons/sq cm for a 1 sq cm 12% BOL InP/Si cell. These values are then checked for consistency by comparing measured Voc data with a theoretical Voc model that includes a dark current term that depends on the extracted diffusion lengths.
- Research Organization:
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Cleveland, OH (United States). Lewis Research Center
- OSTI ID:
- 177653
- Report Number(s):
- N--96-15042; NASA-CP--10180; NAS--1.55:10180; E--9943; NIPS--95-05337; CONF-9510288--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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