Energy loss process analysis for radiation degradation and immediate recovery of amorphous silicon alloy solar cells

Performance degradation of a-Si/a-SiGe/a-SiGe triple-junction solar cells due to irradiation of silicon ions, electrons, and protons are investigated using an in-situ current-voltage measurement system. The performance recovery immediately after irradiation is also investigated. Significant recovery is always observed independent of radiation species and temperature. It is shown that the characteristic time, which is obtained by analyzing the short-circuit current annealing behavior, is an important parameter for practical applications in space. In addition, the radiation degradation mechanism is discussed by analyzing the energy loss process of incident particles (ionizing energy loss: IEL, and non-ionizing energy loss: NIEL) and their relative damage factors. It is determined that ionizing dose is the primarily parameter for electron degradation whereas displacement damage dose is the primarily parameter for proton degradation. This is because the ratio of NIEL to IEL in the case of electrons is small enough to be ignored the damage due to NIEL although the defect creation ratio of NIEL is much larger than that of IEL in the cases of both protons and electrons. The impact of radiation quality effect has to be considered to understand the degradation due to Si ion irradiation. (C) 2015 The Japan Society of Applied Physics