Recovery of high energy proton defects in GaInP2/GaAs/Ge triple junction solar cells by isothermal annealing

We report on defect recovery of high energy proton irradiated GaInP₂/GaAs/Ge triple junctions cells and related component cells by isothermal annealing. For systematically addressing the solar cell behavior all mission representative key parameters are varied: The energy of the impinging protons is 0.75 MeV, 2.0 MeV and 6.5 MeV; the particle fluence is varied within 3 orders of magnitude between 5.0×10¹⁰ and 5.0×10¹²; the isothermal annealing is performed with solar cells being open circuited (under 1AM0 illumination), short circuited (under 1AM0 or 3AM0 illumination) or in dark (without illumination).