High energy irradiation properties of CdTe/CdS solar cells

Author

Bätzner, D.L. ; Romeo, A. ; Döbeli, M. ; Weinert, K. ; Zogg, H. ; Tiwari, A.N.

Author_Institution

Thin Film Phys. Group, Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

fYear

2002

fDate

19-24 May 2002

Firstpage

982

Lastpage

985

Abstract

The irradiation hardness of CdTe solar cells was investigated for extremely high fluence of protons (up to 10¹⁴ cm^-2) and electrons (up to 10¹⁸ cm^-2) since the degradation onset occurs at very high fluences. One general degradation characteristic for CdTe cells was calculated using a damage dose formulation, allowing a comprehensive comparison with other cell technologies. CdTe cells show an excellent radiation stability, superior to monocrystalline cells and also slightly superior to other thin film cells. Changes in the cell parameters are quantitatively correlated to recombination centres. For proton irradiation, a passivation of recombination centres at low and medium fluences is observed causing even an increases the efficiency. The damage recovery of CdTe cells shows an exponential time dependence.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; cadmium compounds; electron beam effects; proton effects; solar cells; CdTe-CdS; CdTe/CdS solar cells; damage recovery; electron irradiation; high energy irradiation properties; irradiation hardness; passivation; proton irradiation; radiation fluence effects; radiation stability; recombination centres; Electrons; Orbits; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Protons; Radiative recombination; Satellites; Stability; Substrates; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2002. Conference Record of the Twenty-Ninth IEEE

ISSN

1060-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7471-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2002.1190766

Filename

1190766