Characteristics of ARC Currents on a Negatively Biased Solar Cell Array in a Plasma

The time dependence of the emitted currents during arcing on solar cell arrays was studied. Arcs are characterized using three parameters: the voltage change of the array during an arc (i. e., the charge lost), the peak current during the arc, and the time constant describing the arc current decay. This paper reports the dependence of these characteristics on two array parameters, the bias voltage and the array capacitance to ground. It was found that the voltage change of the array during an arc is nearly equal to the bias voltage. The array capacitance, on the other hand, causes both the peak current and the decay time constant of the arc to increase with increasing capacitance.