Abstract We explored the utility of ground-based highly accelerated life testing (HALT) on triple-junction coverglass interconnected cells (CICs) after exposure to Mars dust storm conditions. The CICs comprised the triple junction solar cells, a silicone encapsulant bonded to ceria-doped coverglass with an antireflection coating. These CICs were placed in an enclosure and sandblasted with Mars dust simulant to replicate dust impingement. We compared the apparatus properties with measured Martian dust storm parameters from Viking landers. We found that simulated Martian dust storms often result in increased reflectance and decreased absorption at visible wavelengths and subsequent reduced short circuit current (JSC). Reduction in the open circuit voltage (VOC) is observed in select cases, caused by structural damage after CIC fracture. We found that even if there is no observable VOC losses, minority carrier lifetime is reduced. The JSC tends to rebound upon cleaning, suggesting current losses are reversible and unrelated to permanent damage such as cell cracking and subsequent isolation of regions of the cell due to broken busbars. This observation indicates a quantifiable difference between recoverable and non-recoverable power loss, suggesting a permanent degradation could be determined. We compared experimental data to mined field data from the Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity and extracted a degradation rate. We found exceptional agreement between the irreversible degradation in our laboratory experiments and 4.9 Martian years of mined field data, 9.7% and 9.4% respectively, demonstrating that the laboratory method well represents the physical reality of solar cells’ exposure to the Martian environment.

中文翻译：

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火星尘埃相互作用引起的光伏退化模式研究

摘要 我们探索了地面高度加速寿命测试 (HALT) 在暴露于火星沙尘暴条件后对三结玻璃罩互连电池 (CIC) 的效用。CIC 包括三结太阳能电池，一种有机硅密封剂，结合到具有抗反射涂层的二氧化铈玻璃罩上。这些 CIC 被放置在一个外壳中，并用火星尘埃模拟物喷砂以复制尘埃撞击。我们将设备特性与维京着陆器测量的火星沙尘暴参数进行了比较。我们发现模拟的火星沙尘暴通常会导致可见光波长的反射率增加和吸收率降低，进而导致短路电流 (JSC) 降低。在特定情况下观察到开路电压 (VOC) 降低，这是由 CIC 断裂后的结构损坏引起的。我们发现，即使没有可观察到的 VOC 损失，少数载流子寿命也会减少。JSC 在清洁时往往会反弹，这表明电流损失是可逆的，并且与永久性损坏无关，例如电池破裂和随后由于母线损坏而导致的电池区域隔离。这一观察结果表明可恢复和不可恢复功率损耗之间存在可量化的差异，表明可以确定永久性退化。我们将实验数据与来自火星探索漫游者、机遇号的实地数据进行了比较，并提取了降解率。我们发现实验室实验中的不可逆退化与 4.9 火星年的野外开采数据之间的异常一致，分别为 9.7% 和 9.4%，