Characterization and modeling of InP solar cells

Author

Augustine, G. ; Smith, A.W. ; Rohatgi, A. ; Keavney, C.J.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

fYear

1988

fDate

1988

Firstpage

903

Abstract

InP solar cells were modeled before and after proton irradiation using a PC-1D computer model. It was necessary to include bandgap narrowing in the n⁺ emitter to match the calculated and measured quantum efficiency, leakage current, and cell data simultaneously. A high-efficiency ( approximately=18.2%, AM0) InP solar cell was fabricated and modeled successfully. Guidelines are provided for achieving greater than 22% efficiency for InP cells. A 10 MeV proton irradiation with a dose of 2*10¹³ cm^-2 reduces the cell performance of a 16.3% cell to 11% by introducing the deep levels at an E_v of +0.29 eV and an E_v of +0.52 eV. Modeling showed that this performance degradation is associated with a decrease in bulk lifetime from 0.75 to 0.028 ns with no appreciable change in front surface recombination velocity.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; electronic engineering computing; indium compounds; semiconductor device models; solar cells; 0.29 eV; 0.52 eV; 10 MeV; 11 percent; 16.3 percent; 18.2 percent; InP solar cells; PC-1D computer model; bandgap narrowing; bulk lifetime; deep levels; front surface recombination velocity; leakage current; performance; proton irradiation; quantum efficiency; semiconductor device models; Current measurement; Degradation; Doping; Gallium arsenide; Guidelines; Indium phosphide; Leakage current; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Protons; Radiative recombination; Semiconductor process modeling; Wavelength measurement;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1988., Conference Record of the Twentieth IEEE

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV, USA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1988.105834

Filename

105834