Design and Evaluation of The Performance of a Special Solar Spectrum Simulator for Ruthenium-Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Testing Using LED Technology

In this paper, we present the construction of a light-emitting diode (LED)-based solar spectrum simulator, oriented mainly for the testing of dye-sensitized solar cells based on ruthenium and ruthenium-based compounds. The simulator is built with inexpensive off-the-shelf components, and offers good integrability, scalability and the compatibility with incandescent light sources such as halogen lamps. To verify the properties of the simulator, we performed spectrum measurements of the device and cross-referenced them with the standard solar spectrum AM 1.5 for the terrestrial case, and with the known absorption spectrum of ruthenium. Also, we performed a full energy test on a silicon and a ruthenium-based solar cell, in natural solar light and under our simulator, and cross-referenced the quality of the obtained current-voltage characteristics.