Photoluminescence Analysis of Injection-Enhanced Annealing of Electron Irradiation-Induced Defects in GaAs Middle Cells for Triple-Junction Solar Cells

Abstract

Photoluminescence measurements are carried out to investigate the injection-enhanced annealing behavior of electron radiation-induced defects in a GaAs middle cell for GaInP/GaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells which are irradiated by 1.8MeV with a fluence of 1 × 1015 cm−2. Minority-carrier injection under forward bias is observed to enhance the defect annealing in the GaAs middle cell, and the removal rate of the defect is determined with photoluminescence radiative efficiency recovery. Furthermore, the injection-enhanced defect removal rates obey a simple Arrhenius law. Therefore, the annealing activation energy is acquired and is equal to 0.58 eV. Finally, in comparison of the annealing activation energies, the E5 defect is identified as a primary non-radiative recombination center.

Non-ionizing energy loss calculations for modeling electron-induced degradation of Cu(In, Ga)Se 2 thin-film solar cells

“…[7,8] In order to improve the radiation resistance of solar cells, the study on injection-enhanced annealing of electron irradiationinduced defects was carried out by temperature-dependent photoluminescence. [9,10] However, the experimental characterization is time consuming and can be very expensive. As a result, a modeling method was proposed to predict the degradation of solar cells based on classical semiconductor equations.…”

Temperature-Dependent Photoluminescence Analysis of 1.0 MeV Electron Irradiation-Induced Nonradiative Recombination Centers in n${}^{+}$–p GaAs Middle Cell of GaInP/GaAs/Ge Triple-Junction Solar Cells

“…[15] where the E5 defect was found by room temperature PL measurement to control the radiation response and annealing properties of the ptype GaAs middle cell for 3J solar cells after injectionenhanced annealing. As shown in a previous investigation, to identify the nonradiative recombination centers, the room-temperature PL method was applied to study the injection-enhanced annealing behavior of solar cells [15] or to analyze the capture cross-section of the minority carrier in the solar cells irradiated with electrons at different energies and fluences, [5] whereas the temperature-dependent PL measurements could not only identify the nonradiative recombination centers but also reveal the activation process of the nonradiative recombination centers in a solar cell.…”