Transient response of gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells under laser pulse

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:191144

Jain, R K ^[1]; Landis, G A ^[2]

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1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Cleveland, OH (United States). Lewis Research Center
2. Nyma, Inc., Brookpark, OH (United States)

Solar cells can be used as receivers in laser power beaming applications. Power beamed to a photovoltaic array could power a satellite, an orbital transfer vehicle or a lunar base. Understanding solar cell response to the pulsed output of a free-electron laser (FEL) is important for evaluation of power-beaming applications. In this work the authors investigate the time response of gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells to a 25 nS monochromatic pulse input. The PC-1D computer code is used to analyze the cell current during and after the pulse for various conditions. For GaAs cells, current decay was studied at 511 nm, 840 nm, and 870 nm. Most of the results have been calculated for a peak intensity of 50 W/cm{sup 2}, which corresponds to nearly 1,000 suns peak concentration. Compared to gallium arsenide, silicon has longer minority carrier lifetime and weaker optical absorption, resulting in longer characteristic time constants. Si cell performance was studied at 900, 950, and 1,060 nm wavelengths.

• OSTI ID: 191144
• Report Number(s): CONF-941203--; ISBN 0-7803-1459-X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
ABSORPTIVITY
CARRIER LIFETIME
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
GALLIUM ARSENIDE SOLAR CELLS
LASER POWER TRANSMISSION
PERFORMANCE
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
SOLAR RECEIVERS
SPACECRAFT POWER SUPPLIES
TIME DEPENDENCE
WAVELENGTHS