Damage and coefficients and thermal annealing of irradiated silicon and GaAs solar cells

Electron and proton damage coefficients have been measured for several types of silicon cells of recent manufacture using 1 MeV electrons and protons with energies of 8.3, 17.5 and 40 MeV. LPE (AlGa)As-GaAs cells were also irradiated and pseudodamage coefficients derived under the assumption that the irradiation changes the diffusion length in only one of the n- or p-type layers. After irradiation the cells were annealed isochronally up to 450 C. The damage coefficient and annealing data for silicon cells are in substantial agreement with previous work. The GaAs cells have pseudo-damage coefficients which are dependent on fluence, and have about the same energy dependence as Si damage coefficients.