Thin-film silicon solar cells for space applications: radiation hardness and applications for an integrated Solant (solar cell-antenna) module

A new device called "Solant" (for SOLar cell-ANTenna) is presented in this paper. It is a combination of thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells and flat printed antennas. A proton irradiation campaign has also been carried out on a series of n-i-p amorphous and p-i-n micromorph [microcrystalline (/spl mu/c-Si:H) and amorphous (a-Si:H)] silicon tandem solar cells. The effect of thermal annealing on solar cells degraded by proton irradiation is investigated.