Minority-Carrier Injection-Enhanced Recovery of Radiation-Induced Defects in n+p AlInGaP Solar Cells

The recovery of defects introduced in n⁺/p AlInGaP solar cells under the 1 MeV electron/30keV proton irradiation by the minority-carrier injection-enhanced annealing is presented here. As a forward bias injection (100 mA/cm²) time increases, DLTS signal of H1 and H2 defects, which are introduced by the 1 MeV electron irradiation, decreases, indicating that they are annealed out due to nonradiative electron-hole recombination enhanced process. The activation energy DeltaE for the recovery of defect centers (H1 and H2) by the injection was 0.50 eV and 0.60 eV, respectively. Under the 30 keV proton irradiation, HP1 and HP2 defect centers were produced, and the annealing activation energy of AlInGaP solar cells obtained from the injection (1 A/cm²) was 0.42 eV