1. Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators
- Author
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John F. Geisz, Harry A. Atwater, Colton R. Bukowsky, Zach Nett, Junwen He, Ralph G. Nuzzo, Lu Xu, A. Paul Alivisatos, Benjamin G. Lee, Ognjen Ilic, Haley Bauser, and David R. Needell
- Subjects
Materials science ,luminescent devices ,quantum dots ,tandem PV ,02 engineering and technology ,III-V concentrator photovoltaics ,01 natural sciences ,Waveguide (optics) ,010309 optics ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,0103 physical sciences ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Quantum Physics ,Tandem ,Cadmium selenide ,business.industry ,Photovoltaic system ,Energy conversion efficiency ,Monte Carlo methods ,Materials Engineering ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Condensed Matter Physics ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,chemistry ,Quantum dot ,Luminophore ,Optoelectronics ,Photonics ,0210 nano-technology ,business - Abstract
© 2018 IEEE. Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) harness light generated by luminophores embedded in a light-trapping waveguide to concentrate onto smaller cells. LSCs can absorb both direct and diffuse sunlight, and thus can operate as flat plate receivers at a fixed tilt and with a conventional module form factor. However, current LSCs experience significant power loss through parasitic luminophore absorption and incomplete light trapping by the optical waveguide. Here, we introduce a tandem LSC device architecture that overcomes both of these limitations, consisting of a poly(lauryl methacrylate) polymer layer with embedded cadmium selenide core, cadmium sulfide shell (CdSe/CdS) quantum dot (QD) luminophores and an InGaP microcell array, which serves as high bandgap absorbers on the top of a conventional Si photovoltaic. We investigate the design space for a tandem LSC, using experimentally measured performance parameters for key components, including the InGaP microcell array, CdSe/CdS QDs, and spectrally selective waveguide filters. Using a Monte Carlo ray-tracing model, we compute the power conversion efficiency for a tandem LSC module with these components to be 29.4% under partially diffuse illumination conditions. These results indicate that a tandem LSC-on-Si architecture could significantly improve upon the efficiency of a conventional Si photovoltaic cell.
- Published
- 2018