Space applications of III-V single- and multijunction solar cells

This chapter begins with a short history of the use of photovoltaics in space and addresses challenges presented by the space environment that degrades performance over time during missions. Primarily the chapter establishes a solid-state physics formalism necessary to model the performance of single-junction (SJ) and multijunction (MJ) space solar cells both at beginning of life (BOL) and at end of life (EOL). The chapter then proceeds to utilize that model to predict the BOL and EOL performance of III-V-based technologies ranging from SJ GaAs cells, to lattice matched 3J structures, all the way up to complex 5J lattice matched structures. Each MJ cell technology is evaluated for its viability in space-based applications based upon two key metrics: the EOL efficiency and EOL $/W.