Effects of radiation on solar cells as photovoltaic generators

The growing need for obtaining electrical energy through renewable energy sources such as solar energy have lead to significant technological developments in the production of the basic element of PV conversion, the solar cell. Basically, a solar cell is a p-n junction whose characteristics have a great influence on its output parameters, primarily efficiency. Defects and impurities in the basic material, especially if located within the energy gap, may be activated during its lifetime, becoming traps for optically produced electron-hole pairs and, thus, decreasing the output power of the cell. All of the said effects could be induced in many ways over a lifetime of a solar cell and are consistent with the effects that radiation produces in semiconductor devices. The aim of this paper is to investigate changes in the main characteristics of solar cells, such as efficiency, output current and power, due to the exposure of solar systems to different (hostile) radiation environments.