A review of radiation effects in InP solar cells

Theoretically, InP has one of the highest solar energy conversion efficiencies of any semiconductor material. However, InP wafers are brittle and expensive which makes large area, single crystal InP device fabrication difficult. Despite this difficulty, research in InP solar cells has progressed rapidly over the past 10 years. The reason is high radiation tolerance. This quality is an essential feature of space power sources due to the harsh space radiation environment, and InP solar cells are more radiation resistant than the leading solar cell technologies, i.e. Si and GaAs. Therefore, InP solar cells are a very attractive space power source and have been seriously developed as such. This paper first reviews the chronology of this development and then takes a focused look at the present understanding of the mechanism of the radiation response of InP solar cells