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Semi‐quantitative temperature accelerated life test (ALT) for the reliability qualification of concentrator solar cells and cell on carriers
Author(s) -
Nuñez Neftali,
Vazquez Manuel,
Orlando Vincenzo,
EspinetGonzález Pilar,
Algora Carlos
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.2631
Subject(s) - reliability (semiconductor) , concentrator , reliability engineering , accelerated life testing , solar cell , accelerated aging , photovoltaic system , computer science , test (biology) , test method , engineering , electrical engineering , telecommunications , mathematics , statistics , physics , paleontology , power (physics) , quantum mechanics , weibull distribution , biology
An adequate qualification of concentrator photovoltaic solar cells and cell‐on‐carriers is essential to increase their industrial development. The lack of qualification tests for measuring their reliability together with the fact that conventional accelerated life tests are laborious and time consuming are open issues. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a semi‐quantitative temperature‐accelerated life test to qualify solar cells and cell‐on‐carriers that can assure a minimum life when failure mechanisms are accelerated by temperature under emulated nominal working conditions with an activation energy >0.9 eV. A properly designed semi‐quantitative accelerated life test should be able to determine if the device under test will satisfy its reliability requirements with an acceptable uncertainty level. The applicability, procedure, and design of the proposed test are detailed in the paper. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.