Thin-Film Luminescent Solar Concentrator Based on Intramolecular Charge Transfer Fluorophore and Effect of Polymer Matrix on Device Efficiency

Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) provide a transformative approach to integrating photovoltaics into a built environment. In this paper, we report thin-film LSCs composed of intramolecular charge transfer fluorophore (DACT-II) and discuss the effect of two polymers, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and poly (benzyl methacrylate) (PBzMA) on the performance of large-area LSCs. As observed experimentally, DACT-II with the charge-donating diphenylaminocarbazole and charge-accepting triphenyltriazine moieties shows a large Stokes shift and limited re-absorption losses in both polymers. Our results show that thin-film LSC (10 × 10 × 0.3 cm3) with optimized concentration (0.9 wt%) of DACT-II in PBzMA gives better performance than that in the PMMA matrix. In particular, optical conversion efficiency (ηopt) and power-conversion efficiency (ηPCE) of DACT-II/PBzMA LSC are 2.32% and 0.33%, respectively, almost 1.2 times higher than for DACT-II/PMMA LSC.

On the Use of Polymer-Based Composites for the Creation of Optical Sensors: A Review

“…There are many polar substituents that contribute to the formation of dipole interactions with the corresponding substrates. Such matrices include: among the organic ones most popular are oligo-polysaccharides [ 46 , 47 ], cellulose [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ], polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ], polyvinyl chloride (PVC) [ 11 , 56 ]; among inorganic ones most popular are silica and other polymeric oxides obtained by sol-gel synthesis [ 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. On the other hand, the luminophore must have the following groups (one or several): H-, hydroxo-, amino-, nitro-, sulpho-, mercapto- and groups comprising from atoms with an unsplit electron pair and capable of forming a donor-acceptor bond; phenyl and other cyclically conjugated molecules to form π-π stacking.…”