Effects of radiation of InP cells epitaxially grown on Si and GaAs substrates

The properties of heteroepitaxial InP solar cells were determined both before and after 10 MeV proton irradiations. Numerical values, obtained for the diffusion and recombination components of the reverse saturation currents, were found to be consistent with the distribution of dislocations. The radiation resistance of the heteroepitaxial cells was significantly greater than that observed for n/p homoepitaxial InP cells. The carrier removal rate, obtained by C-V measurements, was 1.8×10³ cm^-1 for 10 MeV protons compared with 2.2 cm^-1 for 1 MeV electrons. The high carrier removal rate was found to have no significant effect on the cell´s series resistance. It was concluded that the heteroepitaxial cell performance is dominated by the high dislocation density attributable to lattice constant mismatch. Although the efficiencies of the existing cells are low, the achievement of 13.7% AM0 efficiencies using a GaAs substrate demonstrates the marked improvement that can be attained using more appropriate transition layers