TY - JOUR
T1 - Resonance-shifting to circumvent reabsorption loss in luminescent solar concentrators
AU - Giebink, Noel C.
AU - Wiederrecht, Gary P.
AU - Wasielewski, Michael R.
N1 - Funding Information:
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).
PY - 2011/11
Y1 - 2011/11
N2 - 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.
AB - 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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U2 - 10.1038/nphoton.2011.236
DO - 10.1038/nphoton.2011.236
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80455160364
SN - 1749-4885
VL - 5
SP - 694
EP - 701
JO - Nature Photonics
JF - Nature Photonics
IS - 11
ER -
