High dielectric contrast polymer dielectric mirrors are used to recycle non-absorbed photons in organic luminescent solar concentrators. A 10% increase in the concentrator optical efficiency is found and retained upon doubling its size paving the way to lightweight and cheap building integrated photovoltaic systems.

PMMA_TPE_RED polymers containing 0.98–3.05 wt% of a red-emitting AIEgen were prepared and proposed as high performance luminescent solar concentrators.

In the present work, the preparation of different styrene-based polymer films containing small amounts of TPE and the evaluation of their photoluminescent behaviour is reported. When TPE is dispersed in a poor solvent or in a glassy PS matrix, the arrested intramolecular rotations of its aryls favour the strong emission of light centred at about 455-460 nm. Conversely, TPE fluorescence significantly weakens to a faint signal when good solvents or viscous but not glassy polymer matrices are used. Near-field optical microscopy correlates the fluorescence behaviour with the different matrix morphologies. These results should be able to be used for developing a new tool for polymer traceability