RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COVERING TECHNIQUES FOR FABRICATION OF SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Radiation resistant, drift field solar cell for prolonged use in space radiation environment
Fabrication of copper and nickel solar concentrators
Magnesium and aluminum electroforming process for solar concentrators
Lithium diffusion parameters in radiation resistant solar cells
Various aspects of lithium solar cell fabrication processes
Fabrication and characteristics of radiation resistant lithium doped p-n solar cells
Effect of sintering TiAg contact on p/n cells from effect of heat treatment on lithium diffused cells
Fabrication and analysis of lithium diffused radiation resistant solar cells
Boron diffusion on silicon investigated for use in solar cells
Volt-ampere characteristics and maximum power distributions of lithium-diffused p-n solar cells
Boron diffused radiation resistant solar cells
Fabrication techniques to improve initial efficiency and radiation tolerance of radiation hardened lithium-diffused silicon solar cells
TiPdAg and Al contact systems on p/n cells for humidity resistance and strength
Expandable rigidizable solar shields operational, structural and thermal performance tests conducted with spherical models for cryogenically fueled space vehicles
Lithium diffused radiation resistant solar cells
The work performed to investigate the effect of various process parameters on the performance of lithium doped P/N solar cells is described. Effort was concentrated in four main areas: (1) the starting material, (2) the boron diffusion, (3) the lithium diffusion, and (4) the contact system. Investigation of starting material primarily involved comparison of crucible grown silicon (high oxygen content) and Lopex silicon (low oxygen content). In addition, the effect of varying growing parameters of crucible grown silicon on lithium cell output was also examined. The objective of the boron diffusion studies was to obtain a diffusion process which produced high efficiency cells with minimal silicon stressing and could be scaled up to process 100 or more cells per diffusion. Contact studies included investigating sintering of the TiAg contacts and evaluation of the contact integrity.
Lithium-doped solar cells have been fabricated with initial lot efficiencies averaging 11.9 percent in an air mass zero (AMO) solar simulator and a maximum observed efficiency of 12.8 percent. The best lithium-doped solar cells are approximately 15 percent higher in maximum power than state-of-the-art n-p cells after moderate to high fluences of 1-MeV electrons and after 6-7 months exposure to low flux irradiation by a Sr-90 beta source, which approximates the electron spectrum and flux associated with near Earth space. Furthermore, lithium-doped cells were found to degrade at a rate only one tenth that of state-of-the-art n-p cells under 28-MeV electron irradiation. Excellent progress has been made in quantitative predictions of post-irradiation current-voltage characteristics as a function of cell design by means of capacitance-voltage measurements, and this information has been used to achieve further improvements in lithium-doped cell design.