CIGS Solar Cells for Space Applications: Numerical Simulation of the Effect of Traps Created by High-Energy Electron and Proton Irradiation on the Performance of Solar Cells

Numerical simulation is carried out using the Silvaco ATLAS software to predict the effect of 1-MeV electron and 4-MeV proton irradiation on the performance of a Cu(In, Ga)Se 2 (CIGS) solar cell that operates under the air mass zero spectrum (AM0). As a consequence of irradiation, two types of traps are induced including the donor- and acceptor-type traps. Only one of them (the donor-type trap) is found responsible for the degradation of the open-circuit voltage ( V OC ), fill factor (FF) and efficiency ( η ), while the short circuit current ( J SC ) remains essentially unaffected. The modelling simulation validity is verified by comparison with the experimental data. This article shows that CIGS solar cells are suited for space applications.