First flight demonstration of film-laminated InGaP/GaAs and CIGS thin-film solar cells by JAXA's small satellite in LEO

森岡 千晴*; 島崎 一紀*; 川北 史朗*; 今泉 充*; 山口 洋司*; 高本 達也*; 佐藤 真一郎; 大島 武; 中村 揚介*; 平子 敬一*; et al.

Progress in Photovoltaics; Research and Applications, 19(7), p.825 - 833, 2011/11

https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.1046

The electrical performances of InGaP/GaAs dual-junction solar cells and CIGS solar cells in space have been demonstrated by JAXA's small satellite which flew in a low-earth orbit since January 2009. This flight demonstration is the first experiment for a thin-film III-V multi-junction solar cell in the world. Thin-film solar cells were laminated using transparent polymer film in place of conventional coverglass for protection of solar cell's surface. The film-laminated cells were observed for short-circuit current degradation. The ground tests indicated that the cause of the degradation was attributed to the film coloring by obliquely incident UV rays, not to space radiations (protons and electrons). This is because the lamination film has UV-reflective multilayer coating on its surface. The flight data and the predicted results were in reasonable agreement with each other. Thus, we could verify the validity of the ground tests and prediction methodology for film-laminated solar cell in this study.