Flexibility in space solar cell production

The wide range of cells that must be available from present-day production lines for space solar cells are described. After over thirty years of space-cell use, there is very little standardization in solar cell design. It is not generally recognized what a wide range of designs must remain available on cell production lines. This range of designs is surveyed

Entrenching the Minority: The Constitutional Court in Thailand\u27s Political Conflict

Since 2006, Thailand has witnessed an unprecedented surge of judicial activism from the Constitutional Court to scrutinize elected politicians in the name of the rule of law. Democracy, argued Constitutional Court judges, could only be consolidated if the rule of law was maintained. But examination of several high-profile constitutional cases suggested that the Constitutional Court was actually working on behalf of the powerful elite minority to obstruct the democratic process under the pretext of protecting the rule of law. This antagonistic position brewed resentment and violence which jeopardized the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy as a neutral political arbiter. The 2014 coup d’etat showed that once again the country has failed to consolidate its democratization. This failure suggests that the Constitutional Court’s notion of the rule of law might not be compatible with the notion of electoral democracy

Optimization and performance of Space Station Freedom solar cells

High efficiency, large area and low cost solar cells are the drivers for Space Station solar array designs. The manufacturing throughput, process complexity, yield of the cells, and array manufacturing technique determine the economics of the solar array design. The cell efficiency optimization of large area (8 x 8 m), dielectric wrapthrough contact solar cells are described. The results of the optimization are reported and the solar cell performance of limited production runs is reported

Silicon solar cells for space use: Present performance and trends

A technology assessment of present performance levels and current fabrication methods and designs is presented

Development of high efficiency (14 percent) solar cell array module

Most effort was concentrated on development of procedures to provide large area (3 in. diameter) high efficiency (16.5 percent AM1, 28 C) P+NN+ solar cells. Intensive tests with 3 in. slices gave consistently lower efficiency (13.5 percent). The problems were identified as incomplete formation of and optimum back surface field (BSF), and interaction of the BSF process and the shallow P+ junction. The problem was shown not to be caused by reduced quality of silicon near the edges of the larger slices