Luminescent Solar Concentrators

LSCs are light harvesting devices comprising a waveguiding substrate (glass or plastic) coated or embedded with highly luminescent dyes or nanoparticles. Incident light absorbed by the dyes leads to luminescence which is trapped by total internal reflection in the substrate and guided to the thin edges, where the concentrated luminescence can enhance the performance of attached solar cells. LSCs have attracted renewed interest because of their potential usefulness in building integrated photovoltaics (e.g. windows and semi-transparent awnings and roofing).

Our research is aimed at addressing current limitations in performance of LSCs including luminescence quenching at the high dye concentrations required, reabsorption of the luminescence during waveguiding and escape cone losses from the substrate. Our recent LSC publications include the development and application of concentration quenching resistant fluorophores, using energy transfer in dye mixtures to overcome reabsorption effects and reducing escape cone losses by dye alignment in the substrates.[1,2] Large area LSCs have been developed that show significant performance improvements on existing devices.[3].

A ray tracing simulator with graphical user interface for LSCs has been described (https://doi.org/10.1088/2050-6120/ab993d) and the software package is available for free download at https://uml.chemistry.unimelb.edu.au/lsc-matlab-code/.

               

[1] B. Zhang, J.L. Banal, D.J. Jones, B.Z. Tang, K.P. Ghiggino, W.W.H. Wong, “Aggregation-Induced Emission—Mediated Spectral Downconversion in Luminescent Solar Concentrators”, Mater. Chem. Front., 2, 615-619 (2018)

[2] B. Zhang, H. Soleimaninejad, C. Gao, J.M. White, T.A. Smith, D.J. Jones, K.P. Ghiggino, W.W.H. Wong, “Highly Efficient Luminescent Solar Concentrators by Selective Alignment of Donor-Emitter Fluorophores”, Chem. Mater., 31(8), 3001–3008 (2019)

[3] B. Zhang, P. Zhao, L.J. Wilson, J. Subbiah, H. Yang, P. Mulvaney, D. J. Jones, K.P. Ghiggino, W.W.H. Wong, “High Performance Luminescent Solar Concentrator Incorporating a Donor-Emitter Fluorophore System”, ACS Energy Lett., 4(8), 1839-1844 (2019)