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Tungsten Lamps as an Affordable Light Source for Testing of Photovoltaic Cells

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Abstract

An improved Tungsten light source system for photovoltaic cell testing made from low-cost, commercially available materials is presented as an alternative to standard expensive testing equipment. In this work, spectral correction of the Tungsten light source is achieved by increasing the color temperature to ∼5200 K using inexpensive commercially available filters. Spectral measurements of the enhanced light source reveal that a better spectrum match towards the solar spectrum is achieved than what has been previously demonstrated. Specifically, the improved solar spectrum match is achieved by substantial filtering of the infrared range. The proposed setup is used to evaluate the performance of both silicon and organic based photovoltaic cells.

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Acknowledgment

The authors thank the members of CiBER Laboratory at SFU for their collaboration as well as to retiring laboratory technician Bill Woods for his valuable assistance and suggestions.

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Correspondence to Bozena Kaminska or Carlo Menon.

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Responsible Editor: H. Stratigopoulos

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Aristizabal, J., Omrane, B., Landrock, C. et al. Tungsten Lamps as an Affordable Light Source for Testing of Photovoltaic Cells. J Electron Test 27, 403–410 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-011-5226-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-011-5226-7

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