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 3×109 to 2x1013 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 3x1011 p/cm2 being only 25%.