EpiNex® Engineered Wafers

Engineered Silicon.
More Power for Longer.

Ultra-thin silicon wafers with engineered doping profiles designed to improve radiation resilience and preserve solar cell performance throughout a satellite mission.

Square EpiNex® silicon cell photographed by NexWafe

Radiation Resilience

Improved efficiency retention demonstrated in electron and proton testing.

Smaller, Lighter Arrays. Longer Missions.

Improved radiation resilience can enable smaller, lighter solar arrays for a given end-of-life power requirement, or potentially extend mission life with the same array size.

Scalable Manufacturing

Direct gas-to-wafer production without conventional ingot growth or wire sawing.

Demonstrated radiation performance

Engineered Wafers. Higher End-of-Life Power.

Measured Cell Efficiency

Absolute solar cell efficiency before and after accelerated 5 MeV proton testing: engineered EpiNex® wafers versus conventional CZ silicon.

Before irradiation (BOL)After irradiationGraded EpiNex® after irradiation

Engineered Doping Gradients Improve Radiation Resilience

Following accelerated 5 MeV proton testing, graded EpiNex® cells achieved 18.0% efficiency, compared with 16.8% for both uniformly doped CZ and EpiNex® controls.

Test context: Results are from experimental mini-cell coupons developed for comparative radiation testing, not optimized commercial-size solar cells. The relevant comparison is relative radiation-induced degradation and post-irradiation efficiency under identical test conditions.

Test conditions: 5 MeV protons, fluence 5 × 10⁹ p/cm². Efficiencies measured under AM1.5 illumination.
Degradation percentages represent relative efficiency loss from BOL.

How It Works

Engineered Electric Fields Reduce Radiation-Induced Power Loss

EpiNex® wafers incorporate precisely controlled boron doping gradients formed during epitaxial growth. These gradients create an internal electric field that assists minority-carrier electron transport toward the collecting junction, mitigating radiation-induced power degradation.

Cross-section of a silicon wafer showing graded boron doping rising toward the top surface — Graded doping profile (boron example)

Band diagrams comparing flat bands in a standard CZ wafer with tilted bands in an engineered wafer driving electrons toward the emitter — Built-in electric field versus standard CZ wafer

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Engineered Silicon.More Power for Longer.