CERN BL4S
Top 50 · Beamline for Schools · T9, CERN
“Can perovskite solar cells survive GeV-scale proton radiation found in space?”
Motivation
Can perovskite solar cells survive GeV-scale proton radiation found in space? Space-bound solar cells face energetic proton environments that most published degradation studies do not represent.
Research Gap
Existing literature only studies low-energy proton irradiation. Those conditions do not represent actual deep-space environments, leaving the GeV-scale regime largely unmeasured.
Scientific Reasoning
If perovskite degradation under GeV-scale protons differs meaningfully from the low-energy regime already studied, then designs validated only against low-energy data may be miscalibrated for real deep-space exposure.
Experimental Design
Proposed measuring perovskite solar cell degradation under GeV-scale proton irradiation at CERN's T9 beamline: one of the first proposed datasets in this energy regime.
Expected Impact
A dataset at GeV-scale proton energies would give future space-hardware teams degradation data closer to real deep-space conditions than the low-energy studies currently available.
Outreach
Outreach planning was part of the proposal from the outset, aimed at making a GeV-scale degradation dataset usable by other teams working on space-bound solar hardware, not just a one-off measurement.
Personal Contributions
Literature review, scientific reasoning, experimental design, proposal development, and outreach planning.
Lessons Learned
Research begins by identifying unanswered questions, not performing experiments.