Recovery of radiation degradation on inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cells by light soaking

Shibata, Yuichi*; Imaizumi, Mitsuru*; Sato, Shinichiro; Oshima, Takeshi; Ooka, Sachiyo*; Takamoto, Tatsuya*

Radiation response is one of the important properties for space solar cells. It should be well understood so as to accurately predict their degradation in orbit and also to improve their radiation tolerance. Recently, a phenomenon, recovery from the radiation degradation by light soaking, on inverted metamorphic (IMM) triple-junction (3J) solar cells was found out. In this work, the light soaking annealing effects on electron irradiated IMM 3J solar cells are reported. IMM 3J solar cells irradiated with 1 MeV electrons with the fluence of 310 e/cm showed the recovery of open-circuit voltage, Voc, up to 43 mV after light (AM0, 1 sun) soaking of 3 hours. The increment of the electroluminescence intensity for InGaP in the IMM 3J cells due to the light soaking suggests that the Voc recovery occurs in InGaP top-cell rather than GaAs middle-cell or InGaAs bottom-cell.