The effects of irradiation on heteroepitaxial InP/InGaAs solar cells

Great interest in InGaAs solar cells is due to the possibility of their use as the bottom cells in high-efficiency mechanically stacked concentrator tandem solar cells and as the bottom cell for monolithic tandem solar cells. Using lightly doped material of n photoactive layers (n-p polarity) and a moderately doped p-layer allows an increase in the radiation resistance of these solar cells. The optimum design for a radiation resistant InGaAs solar cell seems to be a 0.8-1.2 /spl mu/m thick emitter with a dopant concentration of (0.8-1)/spl middot/10/sup 17/ cm/sup -3/. The subject of this paper is experimental results obtained from studying the effect of 1 MeV electron, 3 and 10 MeV proton irradiation in InP/InGaAs solar cells.