THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF PROTON BACK IRRADIATION EFFECTS ON SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES IN SOLAR PANELS - THE CASE OF SILICON BYPASS DIODES

摘要

Despite of electrons are the more abundant particles in LEO (low Earth orbit) orbits, the main responsible of solar panels degradation are protons, due to proton mass is similar to target masses and then presents a higher transfer energy efficiency. The object of this work is to study the contribution of proton irradiation on back side of the solar panels to their degradation. Usually, the effect of back irradiation is considered using an equivalent thickness of Al that does not take into account the anisotropy of the panel structure. Here we perform a comparison between the front side irradiation, where usually the method of an equivalent thickness is applied, and a simplified Monte Carlo simulation approximation of the honeycomb to assess the back side irradiation. Considering the results obtained, a simplified method to predict the backside irradiation contribution to damage is proposed.