High Efficiency Solar Panel (HESP-II).

The objective of this program is to develop space qualified weapon survivable silicon solar cells having a BOL conversion efficency of 16 at 25 C under AMO illumination. After seven 7 years in the synchronous orbit environment approximately 3 x 10 exp 14 1 meV electronssquare centimeter equivalent irradiation the cells shall not degrade more than 13 in conversion efficiency. The status of the work at this point and the performance of the most recent state-of-the-art cells delivered as representative samples are reported. The results obtained to date indicate that some of the processes chosen for optimization have not proven as fruitful as orginally anticipated, while others have demonstrated marked success. The task now is to integrate these various optimizations into an integrated sequence to fabricate cells that meet or surpass the requirements. A list of possible additional investigations, which appear pertinent and useful to this effort, is included in the section entitled Recommendations. Author