page_title: Solar simulator
section_title: Types of solar simulators
hierarchical_section_title: Solar simulator / Types of solar simulators
caption_attribution_description: English: working principle of a 1 Lamp Solar Simulator, typically are used a Xenon short arc lamp
context_page_description: A solar simulator is a device that provides illumination approximating natural sunlight. The purpose of the solar simulator is to provide a controllable indoor test facility under laboratory conditions, used for the testing of solar cells, sun screen, plastics, and other materials and devices.
context_section_description: Solar simulators can be divided into three broad categories: continuous, flashed, and pulsed. The first type is a familiar form of light source in which illumination is continuous in time. The specifications discussed in the previous section most directly relate to this type of solar simulator. This category is most often used for low intensity testing, from less than 1 sun up to several suns. In this context, 1 sun is typically defined as the nominal full sunlight intensity on a bright clear day on Earth, which measures 1000 W/m². Continuous light solar simulators may have several different lamp types combined (e.g. an arc source and one or more halogen lamps) to extend the spectrum far into the infrared. 
  
  Examples of low-intensity and high-intensity continuous solar simulators are available from Solar Light Company, Inc. (inventor of the original solar simulator in 1967,) Atonometrics, Eternal Sun, TS-Space Systems,
  WACOM,  
  Newport Oriel, 
  Sciencetech, Spectrolab, Photo Emission Tech,
  Abet Technologies, infinityPV 
  The second type of solar simulator is the flashed simulator which is qualitatively similar to flash photography and use flash tubes. With typical durations of several milliseconds, very high intensities of up to several thousand suns are possible. This type of equipment is often used to prevent unnecessary heat build-up in the device under test. However, due to the rapid heating and cooling of the lamp, the intensity and light spectrum are inherently transient, making repeated reliable testing more technically challenging. The temporal stability dimension of the standard does not directly apply to this category of solar simulators, although it can be replaced by an analogous shot-to-shot repeatability specification.
  The third type of solar simulator is the pulsed simulator, which uses a shutter to quickly block or unblock the light from a continuous source.  This category is a compromise between the continuous and flash, having the disadvantage of the high power usage and relatively low intensities of the continuous simulators, but advantage of stable output intensity and spectrum. The short illumination duration also provides the benefit of the low thermal loads of flashed simulators. Pulses are typically on the order of 100 milliseconds up to 800 milliseconds for special Xe Long Pulse Systems.
caption: working principle of a 1 Lamp Solar Simulator, typically are used a Xenon short arc lamp
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