A Compact Portable Setup for in situ Solar Cells Degradation Studies

A. FILEVICH; C.J. BRUNO; J. FERNÁNDEZ VÁZQUEZ; M. ALURRALDE; I. PRARIO; M.J.L. TAMASI; M.G. MARTINEZ BOGADO; J.C. PLÁ; J. DURÁN; J. SCHUFF; A. BURLON; P. STOLIAR; D. MINSKY; A.J. KREINER; R. MAYER

California, EE. UU.

Congreso; Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects; 2003

We describe a new method for in situ study of solarcell degradation that accumulates the damage produced by severalsubsequent fluences of radiation on the same cell. We have usedthis method to obtain a full characterization of silicon cells afterinducing radiation damage with 8-MeV and 10-MeV protons andwith 2.65-MeV electrons. A flexible portable setup was developedwith this purpose.We have used this setup to compare the equivalentproton fluences between the JPL method and a new method,proposed by Alurralde, for estimation of the damage produced insolar cells by the protons present in low-altitude orbits.