Technical Notes
Application Notes
Over 40 Years of Proven Performance, True Standards Compliance and Rugged Durability
Depending on your application requirements, Oriel Instruments provide a variety of Solar Simulators to fit your needs. Oriel "Sol" series simulators offer standards compliance to the most current standards from the ASTM, IEC, and JIS with an area of illumination that works for your samples. If your application is in the Ultra-Violet (UV) Oriel offers the COLIPA standard's compliant Sol-UV Solar Simulators. If your application doesn't have stringent requirements, Oriel also offers a variety of large area Solar Flood Sources with a variety of lamp options and power ranging from 100 to 1600W.
Solar Simulator Basics
A Solar Simulator is a light source that approximates the illumination of natural sunlight. Solar simulators with various tailored spectral output are used to to test a variety of samples including but not limited to solar cells, sun screen (SPF), materials photo-stability, and other samples (in-vivo or in-vitro) under controlled, repeatable, laboratory conditions. Please see Simulation of Solar Irradiation for more information.
Standards Compliant Solar Simulators
The IEC 60904-9 Edition 2 (2007), JIS C 8912, and ASTM E 927-05 standards for Spectral are used to classify a solar simulator's approximation of natural sunlight based on three criteria, spectral content, spatial irradiance uniformity, and temporal stability. Each criteria is classified A, B, or C with A being the best match to the standard. We offer the following standard compliant Solar Simulators with output beams from 1.5 x 1.5 inch (38 x 38 mm) inch through 12 x 12 inch (305 x 305 mm).
Solar Flood Light Sources
Oriel offers a wide variety of lower cost solar simulators, that are not tested for standards compliance in various output powers.
Solar Simulator Accessories