Design of an optical system for a solar simulator with high collimation degree and high irradiance

To solve the bottleneck caused by the fact that solar simulators are unable to simulate a solar collimation angle of 32′ and an irradiance of one solar constant at the same time, we designed a new type of optical system for solar simulators. Five major design aspects of the optical system are addressed: the hybrid condenser, collimation lens, field stop, optimization of the optical integrator and the effects on the non-uniformity when the projector lens is defocused. The results show that the solar simulator described in this paper can realize a solar angle of 32′ and an irradiance of one solar constant. Meanwhile, the non-uniformity is less than ±1.34% when the irradiation area has a diameter that is no more than 100 mm and in the 100–300 mm diameter range is less than ±3.8%.