Design of a polymer optical fiber luminescent solar concentrator

Banaei, Esmaeil-Hooman; Abouraddy, Ayman F.

doi:10.1002/pip.2435

Cited by 26 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Bundle structures of POFs‐based LSCs were fabricated to increase the exposed area and the coverage of the PV cell surface. Although, a total coverage of the PV cell area could be attained using fibers with square or rectangular cross section to form the bundle, higher optical efficiencies (2–5%) and larger photon concentrations (30–33%) are expected for cylindrical LSCs relative to that of square ones . These bundles display η opt values up to ≈5.3% and a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) ≈0.74%, when coupled to a Si PV cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large‐Area Tunable Visible‐to‐Near‐Infrared Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Correia

Frias

et al. 2018

Advanced Sustainable Systems

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pushed the efficiency of crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV cells to values approaching the theoretical limit of ≈33%. [3,4] One way to increase the efficiency of PV cells beyond this limit is through the use of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) that are devices comprising a transparent matrix embedding optically active centers that absorb the incident radiation, which is re-emitted at a specific wavelength and transferred by total internal reflection to PV cells located at the edges of the matrix. [5,6] Major advances on the LSCs' research can be found in recent reviews. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Nowadays, c-Si PV cells are the leader technology in the PV market presenting the higher performance in the nearinfrared (NIR) spectral region (from about 700 to 1100 nm), and, thus, NIR-emitting LSCs resonant with the maximum optical response of c-Si PV cells are looked for to maximize the device performance. Several examples pointed out the potential of NIR-emitting quantum dots (QDs), [14][15][16][17][18] but experimental results demonstrating its use in LSCs can only be found in a few reports. [2,[19][20][21][22][23][24] The maximum reported optical conversion efficiency (η opt ) value is 12.6%, considering all the edges of a planar LSC with PbS QDs. [20] Hexanuclear metal halide clusters [22] and a cyanine derivative [23] with emission in the NIR spectral range were also demonstrated to be suitable for LSCs, although no η opt values were presented. Very recently, some of us reported Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) appear as an intriguing way to cope with the limitation of the mismatch between the photovoltaic (PV) cells response and the solar spectrum, with the additional advantage of facilitating urban integration of photovoltaics. A new LSCs geometry based on triangular hollow-core plastic optical fibers (POFs) filled with organic-inorganic hybrid materials doped with Rhodamine 6G, Rhodamine 800, or an Europiumβ-diketonate complex is presented. Large-area LSCs are built from POFs bundle structures, whose assembling is favored by the fiber triangular cross section that also maximizes the coverage of a PV cell surface compared with cylindrical POFs. Each bundle fiber behaves as an individual LSC absorbing UV/blue components of the solar spectrum and emitting visible/NIR radiation. The LSCs are characterized by optical conversion efficiency values up to η opt ≈5.3%, among the largest values reported for single-layer LSCs. Moreover, the coupling between the LSCs to commercial Si PV cells yields maximum power conversion efficiency values of PCE ≈0.74%. The individual waveguiding features of each fiber in the bundle contribute to reduce the reabsorption, as lower performance values (η opt ≈1.5%; PCE ≈0.09%) are estimated for a planar LSC with analogous surface collection area and lightharvesting absorbance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large‐Area Tunable Visible‐to‐Near‐Infrared Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Correia

Frias

et al. 2018

Advanced Sustainable Systems

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“…More recently, this technique was shown to also enable the fabrication of multimaterial fibers that integrate polymers or glasses but also metals, inorganic semiconductors, or nanocomposites, uniformly integrated in prescribed positions along the fiber length. [1][2][3] Such advanced multimaterial fiber systems have been proposed for applications, in optics [16][17][18][19] and imaging, [20][21][22] optoelectronics, [23][24][25][26] sensing, [27,28] energy harvesting, [29,30] bioengineering, [31,32] health care or smart textiles. [21,33,34] So far however, the use of micro-and sub-micrometer surface textures to impart fibers with novel functionalities has not been exploited.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlled Sub‐Micrometer Hierarchical Textures Engineered in Polymeric Fibers and Microchannels via Thermal Drawing

Nguyen‐Dang

Luca

Yan

et al. 2017

Adv Funct Materials

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The controlled texturing of surfaces at the micro‐ and nanoscales is a powerful method for tailoring how materials interact with liquids, electromagnetic waves, or biological tissues. The increasing scientific and technological interest in advanced fibers and fabrics has triggered a strong motivation for leveraging the use of textures on fiber surfaces. Thus far however, fiber‐processing techniques have exhibited an inherent limitation due to the smoothing out of surface textures by polymer reflow, restricting achievable feature sizes. In this article, a theoretical framework is established from which a strategy is developed to reduce the surface tension of the textured polymer, thus drastically slowing down thermal reflow. With this approach the fabrication of potentially kilometers‐long polymer fibers with controlled hierarchical surface textures of unprecedented complexity and with feature sizes down to a few hundreds of nanometers is demonstrated, two orders of magnitude below current configurations. Using such fibers as molds, 3D microchannels are also fabricated with textured inner surfaces within soft polymers such as poly(dimethylsiloxane), at dimensions and a degree of simplicity impossible to reach with current techniques. This strategy for the texturing of high curvature surfaces opens novel opportunities in bioengineering, regenerative scaffolds, microfluidics, and smart textiles.

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“…Finally, we report the experimental realization of a FLSC using two off-the-shelf fluorescence organic dyes. While the use of conventional fluorescent fiber for optical concentration was presented by Wang, et al [16] in 2010 without efficiency measurement reports, our work [17][18][19] which is summarized in this report is, to the best of our knowledge, the first presentation of a thorough theoretical modeling, fabrication, and efficiency measurements on FLSC. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…We limit our FLSC design to a width of W=500 µm and the other dimensions are left as design degrees of freedom for optimizing the FLSC geometry. We have shown elsewhere [17] that a reflective layer positioned below the fiber with a small air gap can improve FLSC performance by folding transmitted light back into the fiber for a second pass through the doped core. Therefore, the same level of incident light absorption may be obtained with lower dopant concentration, which is beneficial for easier fabrication and lower self-absorption.…”

Section: Photo-physical Concentrating Mechanisms and Our Overall Stramentioning

confidence: 97%

Fiber luminescent solar concentrator with 5.7% conversion efficiency

Banaei

Abouraddy

2013

SPIE Proceedings

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Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSC's) are a promising alternative for reducing the cost of solar power. Exploiting the advantages of optical fiber production, we present here a Fiber LSC (FLSC) in which the waveguide is a polymer optical fiber. We present modeling, fabrication and optical characterization of FLSC (conversion efficiency ~ 5.7%) with a hybrid fiber structure for two-stage concentration of incident light. Directional guiding in fiber allows for at least twofold geometrical gain improvement compared to conventional LSC. It also alleviates the size limitation of conventional LSC's in one direction. Light-weight, flexible solar sheets assembled from such fibers can provide a means for mobile energy needs.

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Design of a polymer optical fiber luminescent solar concentrator

Cited by 26 publications

References 38 publications

Large‐Area Tunable Visible‐to‐Near‐Infrared Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Large‐Area Tunable Visible‐to‐Near‐Infrared Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Controlled Sub‐Micrometer Hierarchical Textures Engineered in Polymeric Fibers and Microchannels via Thermal Drawing

Fiber luminescent solar concentrator with 5.7% conversion efficiency

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