A compact portable setup for in situ solar cells degradation

Abstract

We describe a new method for in situ study of solar cell degradation that accumulates the damage produced by several subsequent fluences of radiation on the same cell. We have used this method to obtain a full characterization of silicon cells after inducing radiation damage with 8-MeV and 10-MeV protons and with 2.65-MeV electrons. A flexible portable setup was developed with this purpose. We have used this setup to compare the equivalent proton fluences between the JPL method and a new method, proposed by Alurralde, for estimation of the damage produced in solar cells by the protons present in low-altitude orbits.Index Terms-Electron radiation effects, photovoltaic cells, photovoltaic space power systems, proton radiation effects, test equipment.

Development of solar arrays for Argentine satellite missions

“…This facility is somewhat similar to that described in Ref. [17], but our upper energy limit for protons is at present 25 MeV, suitable for irradiating samples with 100 to 150 μm thick cover glasses. Attached to the chamber a solar simulator based on a 1 kW Xe lamp (Sciencetech SS 1 kW) allows illuminating the samples with a space-like photon flux.…”

“…5 a 15% error in fluence was adopted. Other particular topics on radiation damage studies performed are presented elsewhere [1,3,4,6,17,31].…”

10 MeV proton irradiation effects on GaInP/GaAs/Ge concentrator solar cells and their component subcells

“…This method considers the equivalence between space proton spectrum and the 10 MeV monoenergetic proton fluence based on the primary knock-on atoms (PKA) obtained using the TRIM (transport of ions in matter) software [18] for a simplified semiconductor structure representative of each sample. The details for the application of this method are published elsewhere [17,21]. The spatial damage was simulated using a total spatial dose of 1.23x10 12 proton•cm -2 calculated for III-V devices using the SPENVIS facility (see ref.…”

“…Accordingly, to emulate the radiation damage suffered in orbit, III-V solar cells were irradiated by a 10 MeV proton beam produced by the tandem Van de Graaff accelerator of CNEA (Tandar). All experiments were performed under high vacuum using a specially developed chamber installed in one of the experimental lines of the accelerator (for details see also [17][18][19][20][21]). In order to spread the beam, a 10 µm-thick aluminum foil was installed intercepting the beam path about 6m before the chamber.…”

Desarrollo, Fabricación Y Ensayos en Argentina De Paneles Solares Para Uso Espacial

“…Se desarrolló un montaje experimental con el que se realizaron ensayos de daño por radiación con protones de 10 MeV y fluencias entre 10 8 y 10 13 p/cm 2 sobre celdas de Si, multijuntura InGaP/GaAs/Ge y heterojuntura a-Si/c-Si, utilizando un haz externo del acelerador TANDAR del Centro Atómico Constituyentes de la CNEA, así como experiencias de radiación con electrones de 2,6 MeV en el acelerador LINAC del Centro Atómico Bariloche de la CNEA. En estas experiencias se midió in situ la curva característica corriente-tensión entre irradiaciones de cada una de las celdas estudiadas (Filevich et al, 2003). Asimismo, se realizaron simulaciones teóricas y mediciones experimentales con el fin de verificar la relación entre las características eléctricas de las celdas (corriente de cortocircuito, tensión a circuito abierto y factor de forma) y la vida media de los portadores minoritarios en la base, la cual se ve afectada directamente en este tipo de ensayo (Tamasi et al, 2002, Alurralde et al, 2004.…”