A simulation study of irradiation effect on InAs/GaAsSb type II quantum dot structures.

ABSTRACT

Particles in space cause irradiation damage to the solar cells (SCs), resulting in the degradation of their performance. Quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) have higher theoretical efficiency and better irradiation resistance than the conventional GaAs SCs, which makes them highly promising for application in space. In this paper, we study the proton irradiation effect on InAs/GaAs0.8Sb0.2 QDSCs by SRIM program. The simulation result shows that the InAs/GaAs0.8Sb0.2 QDSCs have fewer vacancies than GaAs SCs when irradiated with low-energy proton, which indicates that the InAs/GaAs0.8Sb0.2 QDSCs have better anti-irradiation characteristics. The study about displacements per atom and proton concentration in two SCs shows that protons with low energy and high irradiation fluences will cause more serious damage in InAs/GaAs0.8Sb0.2 QDSCs. In addition, the proton incident angle affects the vacancy distribution, while the number of QD layers has little effect on it.