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High Radiation Resistance Inverted Metamorphic Solar Cell

Award Information
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Branch: N/A
Contract: NNX11CA60C
Agency Tracking Number: 095857
Amount: $599,993.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: S3.03
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2009
Award Year: 2011
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2011-06-01
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2014-05-31
Small Business Information
IL
Niles, IL 60714-3301
United States
DUNS: 135553472
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Noren Pan
 Principal Investigator
 (847) 588-3001
 npan@mldevices.com
Business Contact
 Noren Pan
Title: Business Official
Phone: (847) 588-3001
Email: noren_pan@mindspring.com
Research Institution
 Stub
Abstract

The innovation in this SBIR Phase II project is the development of a unique triple junction inverted metamorphic technology (IMM), which will enable the manufacturing of very lightweight, low-cost, InGaAsP-based multijunction solar cells. The proposed IMM technology is based on ELO (epitaxial lift-off) and consists of Indium (In) and Phosphorous (P) solar cell active materials, which are designed to improve the radiation resistance properties of the triple junction solar cell while maintaining a high efficiency. Because of the intrinsic radiation hardness of InP materials, this material system is of great interest for building solar cells suitable for deployment in very demanding radiation environments, such as medium earth orbit and missions to the outer planets. Due to high launch costs, weight reduction is a key driver for the development of new space solar cell technologies. Our recently developed epitaxial lift-off (ELO) process will also be applied to this new structure, which will enable the fabrication of the IMM structure without the substrate. Cells with excellent end-of-life (EOL) performance require less area to meet specific mission power requirements. The target efficiency of the proposed IMM cell at the beginning of life (BOL) is greater than 30% at AMO 1-sun. The EOL target of the IMM cell is a degradation of less than 10% in efficiency.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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