Electron irradiation facility for the study of radiation damage in large solar cell arrays in the energy range 0.5<E⩽5 MeV

In this work, a description is presented of the use of an accelerator facility to uniformly irradiate with electrons large samples (of the order of m2) in the energy range from 0.7 to 5 MeV, and currents ranging from hundreds of micro amps to tens of milliamps. The accelerator has a scanning system that allows for large area irradiations. Reference is made to a sample handling system used for solar cell irradiations and a Faraday Cup designed to measure the electron fluence in this facility. Measurements performed with these systems show a typical irradiation area of 6200 cm2 and fluence values of 1013 e/cm2 achieved in about 60 s of irradiation time.