Informal summary:
We studied the photovoltaic properties of the SunPower corporation's C60 monocrystalline, back contact solar cells to determine if they could work as precise, large area photometric calibrators. Our results were promising, and limited only by the precision of our electronics. Conducting a series of experiments, we conclude that these solar cells are reliable photometric calibrators to 1% precision. Pushing to the sub-percent level, as we hope to do with LSST calibration, would require better electronic instruments.
Co-Authors:
Chris Stubbs, Nick Mondrik
Status:
The paper was published in 2020 in SPIE. Initial assessment of monocrystalline silicon solar cells as large-area sensors for precise flux calibration.
Here is a link to the published article: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/Journal-of-Astronomical-Telescopes-Instruments-and-Systems/volume-6/issue-02/026001/Initial-assessment-of-monocrystalline-silicon-solar-cells-as-large-area/10.1117/1.JATIS.6.2.026001.full?SSO=1
Documents:
Here is a pdf of the final manuscript (click on it to view). Red text indicates final reviews for the referee. The files used in generating this manuscript are available at https://github.com/stubbslab/InitialSolarCellsManuscript