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Spatially Resolved Optical Efficiency Measurements of Luminescent Solar Concentrators.

Published version

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Repository DOI


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Authors

Xiao, James 
Drummond, Bluebell H  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5940-8631

Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are able to concentrate both direct and diffuse solar radiation, and this ability has led to great interest in using them to improve solar energy capture when coupled to traditional photovoltaics (PV). In principle, a large-area LSC could concentrate light onto a much smaller area of PV, thus reducing costs or enabling new architectures. However, LSCs suffer from various optical losses which are hard to quantify using simple measurements of power conversion efficiency. Here, we show that spatially resolved photoluminescence quantum efficiency measurements on large-area LSCs can be used to resolve various loss processes such as out-coupling, self-absorption via emitters, and self-absorption from the LSC matrix. Further, these measurements allow for the extrapolation of device performance to arbitrarily large LSCs. Our results provide insight into the optimization of optical properties and guide the design of future LSCs for improved solar energy capture.

Description

Keywords

energy, efficiency, concentration, quantumefficiency, photovoltaics, solar, luminescent solarconcentrator, LSC, optical efficiency

Journal Title

ACS Photonics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2330-4022
2330-4022

Volume Title

10

Publisher

American Chemical Society (ACS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L015978/1)
European Research Council (758826)