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Highly efficient luminescent solar concentrators based on earth-abundant indirect-bandgap silicon quantum dots

Nature Photonics volume 11, pages 177–185 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Building-integrated photovoltaics is gaining consensus as a renewable energy technology for producing electricity at the point of use. Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) could extend architectural integration to the urban environment by realizing electrode-less photovoltaic windows. Crucial for large-area LSCs is the suppression of reabsorption losses, which requires emitters with negligible overlap between their absorption and emission spectra. Here, we demonstrate the use of indirect-bandgap semiconductor nanostructures such as highly emissive silicon quantum dots. Silicon is non-toxic, low-cost and ultra-earth-abundant, which avoids the limitations to the industrial scaling of quantum dots composed of low-abundance elements. Suppressed reabsorption and scattering losses lead to nearly ideal LSCs with an optical efficiency of η = 2.85%, matching state-of-the-art semi-transparent LSCs. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that optimized silicon quantum dot LSCs have a clear path to η > 5% for 1 m2 devices. We are finally able to realize flexible LSCs with performances comparable to those of flat concentrators, which opens the way to a new design freedom for building-integrated photovoltaics elements.

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Figure 1: Concept of LSC window based on ultra-earth-abundant Si quantum dots.
Figure 2: Large-area LSCs based on mass polymerized nanocomposite waveguides doped with Si quantum dots.
Figure 3: Large-area QD-LSCs.
Figure 4: Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulations.
Figure 5: Flexible QD-LSCs for curved BIPV elements.

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Acknowledgements

S.B. acknowledges the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for financial support (EDONHIST) under grant agreement no. 324603. U.K. and S.E. were supported by the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, US Department of Energy. S.E. also acknowledges support through the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant NSF GRFP 00039202. The authors thank M. Acciarri and the staff of the MIB-SOLAR Laboratory for technical assistance with quantitative studies of solar concentration.

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Author notes

  1. Francesco Meinardi and Samantha Ehrenberg: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, via Cozzi 55, Milano, IT-20125, Italy

    Francesco Meinardi, Lorena Dhamo, Francesco Carulli, Michele Mauri, Francesco Bruni, Roberto Simonutti & Sergio Brovelli

  2. Glass to Power Srl, Via Monte Nero 66, Milano, IT-20135, Italy

    Francesco Meinardi, Michele Mauri, Francesco Bruni & Sergio Brovelli

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, High Temperature and Plasma Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 55455, Minnesota, USA

    Samantha Ehrenberg & Uwe Kortshagen

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  1. Francesco Meinardi
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Contributions

The experimental designs were the result of interactions and discussions between S.B. and U.K. S.E. synthesized the quantum dots. L.D. and F.C. fabricated the quantum dot–polymer nanocomposites with the assistance of S.B., R.S. and M.M. S.B. and F.M. planned the experiments. L.D., F.M., F.B. and S.B. performed the spectroscopic experiments and characterized the LSCs. F.M. performed the Monte Carlo simulations. S.B. wrote the paper, in consultation with all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Francesco Meinardi, Uwe Kortshagen or Sergio Brovelli.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Meinardi, F., Ehrenberg, S., Dhamo, L. et al. Highly efficient luminescent solar concentrators based on earth-abundant indirect-bandgap silicon quantum dots. Nature Photon 11, 177–185 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2017.5

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