Photoluminescence Analysis of Electron Damage for Minority Carrier Diffusion Length in GaInP/GaAs/Ge Triple-Junction Solar Cells

Photoluminescence (PL) measurements are carried out to investigate the degradation of GaInP top cell and GaAs middle cell for GaInP/GaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells irradiated with 1.0, 1.8 and 11.5MeV electrons with fluences ranging up to 3 × 10¹⁵, 1 × 10¹⁵ and 3 × 10¹⁴ cm ⁻², respectively. The degradation rates of PL intensity increase with the electron fluence and energy. Furthermore, the damage coefficient of minority carrier diffusion length is estimated by the PL radiative efficiency. The damage coefficient increases with the electron energy. The relation of damage coefficient to electron energy is discussed with the non-ionizing energy loss (NIEL), which shows a quadratic dependence between damage coefficient and NIEL. (paper)