Performance degradation of GaAs multi quantum well solar cells after proton irradiation.

The performance degradation of GaAs multi quantum well solar cells (MQWSCs) has been studied using 2 MeV proton irradiation with fluences from 3 x 109 to 2 x 1013 p/cm². The results have shown that the spectral response of MQWSCs clearly reduces in the short wavelength side after the proton irradiation, and the experimentally determined absolute ΔV∝ loss was found to be a good match to a model which describes the absolute ΔV∝. The cells are seen to display good irradiation tolerance for the degradation rate of the Pmax under the irradiation with a high fluence of 3 x 1011 p/cm² being only 25%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]