Minority-carrier injection-enhanced annealing of radiation damage to InGaP solar cells

The observation of minority-carrier injection-enhanced annealing of radiation-induced defects in InGaP is reported. 1-MeV electron irradiation results demonstrate superior radiation-resistance of InGa0.5P0.5 solar cells compared to GaAs-on-Ge cells. Moreover, minority-carrier injection under forward bias conditions is shown to enhance defect annealing in InGaP and to result in the recovery of InGaP solar cell properties. These results suggest that the radiation-resistance of InGaP-based devices such as InGaP/GaAs(/Ge) multijunction solar cells and InGaP(As) light-emitting devices is further improved under minority-carrier injection condition.