Cosmos/Sun/Simulator
Sun Simulator
A solar simulator (also artificial sun or sunlight simulator) is a device that provides illumination approximating natural sunlight. The purpose of the solar simulator is to provide a controllable test facility under laboratory conditions. It can be used for the testing of any processes or materials that are photosensitive, including solar cells, sun screen, cosmetics, plastics, aerospace materials, skin cancer, bioluminescence, photosynthesis, water treatment, crude-oil degradation, and free radical formation. Solar simulators are used in a wide range of research areas including photobiology, photo-oxidation, photodegradation, photovoltaics, and photocatalysis.
Types of lamps
- Argon arc lamps - used in early solar simulation studies (1972) and have a high color heat emission of 6500 K, well-matched to the sun’s blackbody temperature, with a relatively broad spectral emission from 275 nm to 1525 nm.
- Carbon arc lamps - have an emission similar to AM0 and are therefore used for solar simulators designed to produce extrasolar spectra. (They were used for NASA’s first space simulators.) Carbon arc lamps benefit from higher-intensity UV emission. However, they have the disadvantage of being generally weaker in intensity than similar xenon arc lamps.
- Light-emitting diodes - LEDs have become commonly used in PV solar simulators. They are low-cost and compact with low power consumption. They typically have narrow bandwidths of the order of 10 nm–100 nm, so multiple LEDs must be combined in a solar simulator. Additionally, LEDs have a relatively long life cycle compared to all other solar simulator lamp types, and are very efficient in energy conversion.
- Metal Halide arc lamps - primarily developed for use in film and television lighting, where a high temporal stability and daylight colour match are required. However, for these same properties, metal halide arc lamps are also used in solar simulation. These lamps produce light through a high-intensity discharge (HID) by passing an electric arc through vapourized high-pressure mercury and metal halide compounds.
- Quartz-tungsten halogen lamps (QTH lamps) offer spectra which very closely match black body radiation, although typically with a lower color temperature than the sun. Their disadvantage is that they have a maximum color temperature of 3400K, meaning they produce less UV and more IR emission than sunlight. They are high-intensity and low-cost, and are widely used in less spectrum-sensitive applications such as concentrated solar collector testing.
- A super continuum laser - a source of high-power, broadband light that can range from the visible range to the IR.[1] Lasers are high-intensity and easy to focus, but have the disadvantage of only illuminating very small areas.[1] Their high intensities, however, allow for testing of photovoltaic modules in solar concentrator applications.
- Xenon arc lamps - the most common type of lamp both for continuous and flashed solar simulators. They are a type of high-intensity discharge (HID) lamp where light is produced from an electric arc through ionized, high-pressure xenon gas. These lamps offer high intensities and an unfiltered spectrum which matches reasonably well to sunlight.