A compact portable setup for in situ solar cells degradation

We describe a new method for in situ study of solar cell degradation that accumulates the damage produced by several subsequent fluences of radiation on the same cell. We have used this method to obtain a full characterization of silicon cells after inducing radiation damage with 8-MeV and 10-MeV protons and with 2.65-MeV electrons. A flexible portable setup was developed with this purpose. We have used this setup to compare the equivalent proton fluences between the JPL method and a new method, proposed by Alurralde, for estimation of the damage produced in solar cells by the protons present in low-altitude orbits.