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Resonance-shifting to circumvent reabsorption loss in luminescent solar concentrators

Nature Photonics volume 5, pages 694–701 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) provide a simple means to concentrate sunlight without tracking the Sun. These devices absorb and then re-emit light at a lower frequency into the confined modes of a transparent slab, where it is guided towards photovoltaic cells attached to the slab edges. In the thermodynamic limit, a concentration ratio exceeding the equivalent of 100 suns is possible, but, in actual LSCs, optical propagation loss (due mostly to reabsorption) limits the concentration ratio to ∼10. Here, we introduce a general, all-optical means to overcome this problem by ‘resonance-shifting’, in which sharply directed emission from a bilayer cavity into the glass substrate returns to interact with the cavity off-resonance at each subsequent bounce, significantly reducing reabsorption loss en route to the edges. Using this strategy, we demonstrate near-lossless propagation for several different chromophores, which ultimately enables a more than twofold increase in concentration ratio over that of the corresponding conventional LSC.

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Figure 1: Illustration of the resonance-shifting concept.
Figure 2: Absorption and emission of an evanescently coupled cavity.
Figure 3: Illustration of resonance-shifting with F8BT.
Figure 4: Analysis of resonance-shifting with a Lumogen dye.
Figure 5: Measurement of concentrator performance.
Figure 6: Simulation of concentrator performance.

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Acknowledgements

N.C.G. and G.P.W. acknowledge support from the Center for Nanoscale Materials for the experimental portion of this work, which was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357). N.C.G., G.P.W. and M.R.W. acknowledge support for data analysis and manuscript preparation as part of the ANSER Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (award no. DE-SC0001059).

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Author notes

  1. Noel C. Giebink is a Present address: Department of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

  2. ncg2@psu.edu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, 60439, Illinois, USA

    Noel C. Giebink, Gary P. Wiederrecht & Michael R. Wasielewski

  2. Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center (ANSER), Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Noel C. Giebink, Gary P. Wiederrecht & Michael R. Wasielewski

  3. Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Michael R. Wasielewski

Authors
  1. Noel C. Giebink
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Contributions

N.C.G. conceived the idea, performed the experiments and analysed the data. G.P.W. and M.R.W. co-supervised the work. N.C.G., G.P.W. and M.R.W. prepared the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Noel C. Giebink.

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Giebink, N., Wiederrecht, G. & Wasielewski, M. Resonance-shifting to circumvent reabsorption loss in luminescent solar concentrators. Nature Photon 5, 694–701 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2011.236

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