Characteristics of withstanding radiation damage of InP crystals and devices

Recently, the authors discovered that the characteristics of with standing radiation damage of InP crystals and devices (solar cells) are superior to those of Si and GaAs crystals and devices. Also the restoration phenomena at room temperature of radiation deterioration and the accelerated anneal phenomena by light irradiation and the injection of other minority, carriers in InP system devices were found. Such excellent characteristics suggested that InP devices are promising for the use in space. In this paper, taking an example of solar cells, the radiation resistance characteristics and their mechanism of InP crystals and devices are reported, based on the results of analysis by deep level transient spectroscopy and others. In InP solar cells, the high efficiency of photoelectric conversion was maintained even in the high dose irradiation of 1 MeV electron beam. As the carrier concentration in InP crystals is higher, they are stronger against radiation. With the increase of carrier concentration, the rate of anneal of radiation deterioration at room temperature increased. The accelerated anneal effect by minority carrier injection was remarkable in n+-p junction cells. The excellent characteristics of InP crystals are due to the formation of Frenkel defects of P and their instability. (K.I.)