Luminescent Solar

Contractor

A value addition towards light harvesting technologies

PR E SE N T E D BY:
F a h a d M a t ee n
Gra du a t e Sc h ol a r
Adv a nc e El ec t ron ic a nd In for ma t ion M a t e ria l s La b or t a ry ,
D ep a rt m ent of Ch em ic a l a nd B io ch e mi ca l E ng in eeri ng ,
D ong g u k Univ ersit y , S ou t h Ko rea .

Session Overview
Introduction to Luminescent solar contractors
Need for Luminescent solar contractor
Optimum design strategieskey toward successful light
harvesting
Previous contributions
Proposed objectives of our Project

Introduction to Luminescent solar

contractors
A device used to absorb the light and isotropically emit it at a higher wavelength. The
remitted light moves in a guided mode through the substrate and finally collected by a PV
cell mounted at the edge of the LSC.
Total internal reflection occurs when light impinges the LSC/air boundary with angles
larger than the critical angle.
n is the refractive index of the LSC layer and the fraction of photoluminescent
light which will be totally internally reflected is given by:

For n = 1.5, which is a common refractive index value for glasses, FTIR will be around
75%, which means that a quarter of the luminescence intensity is lost.

Title and Content Layout with Chart

Need for Luminescent solar

contractor
Reduce the cost of solar cells by provide cheap solution solar
energy conversion
LSC can reduce the size of the PV cells more than 90%
Reduction in overall weight of sysstem, so photovoltaics can
be integrated into urban environments, such as windows and
walls, at low cost.
Sunlight can better penetrate the surface of the LSC
waveguide from all angles, making them more appropriate
for collecting non-direct sunlight.
Both direct and diffuse light is collected
Heat is well dissipated into the large area of the collector plate

LSC design
The efficiency of an LSC is dependent on the light trapping capability of the
waveguide, the optical properties of the fluorescent material
Waveguide:
Should have high transparency throughout the visible spectrum, nearly perfect transparency
at wavelengths within the emission spectrum of the fluorescent material
An index of refraction greater than or equal to 1.5
Good photo-stability and durability to achieve a life-span longer than 10 years, and low cost
Thefluorescence
Fluorescent material :
quantum yield is the
Absorption of all wavelengths < 950 nm with high absorption coefficients and an emission
ratio of photons absorbed
peak 1000 nm.
to photons emitted
Minimum reabsorption losses due to overlap of absorption and emission spectra.
through fluorescence
Near-unity fluorescence quantum yield (FQY).
Long-term outdoor stability (more than ten years).

Types of Photo luminescent material :

Organic Dyes

Photo
luminescent
material :

Rare earth
metals
Quantum
dots

Organic Dyes:

Mostly used ;
Rhodamines, coumarins, and DCM, due to their near-unity fluorescence
quantum yields and low cost.
Advantageous compared to rare-earth metals and QDs due to their extremely
high fluorescence quantum yield, low cost and availability.
Disadvantageous in general due to their relatively narrow absorption spectra,
relatively broad emission spectra, and absorption/emission spectrum overlap.

Rare earth metals:

A class of inorganic fluorescent material, usually comprised of Neodymium
(Nd), Europium, and/or Ytterbium (Yb).
Surprisingly having non-overlapping absorption and emission spectra
Excellent photostability
The FQY of RE materials vary greatly depending on host materials and
concentration but values >90% have been reported in glass substrates.
Disadvantages include that RE materials exhibit extremely low
absorption coefficients. Thus, high concentrations are required to
effectively harvest a significant fraction of sunlight
Exhibit numerous narrow absorption bands resulting in limited utilization of
the solar spectrum

Quantum Dot Nanocrystals:

Size of a QD dictates the degree of confinement; decreasing the
size of a quantum dot increases the energy-band spacing and
band-gap accordingly. Thus, the absorption and emission spectra
of QDs can be adjusted by changing their size.
PbS and lead selenide (PbSe) QDs have broad absorption spectra
with high absorption coefficients
Primary drawback is Absorption and emission spectra of QDs
tends to overlap significantly and also less-than-unity
Future improvements
QD
fluorescence
quantum in
yields
fabrication techniques could
potentially reduce the
reabsorption losses in QD
samples by producing samples
with smaller size distributions.

Performance evaluations:
Total internal reflection is the basic principle behind wave guiding.
Luminescent quantum efficiency:
The ratio between the number of emitted photons per absorbed photon.
organic dyes = 1, Rare-earth > 0.9, quantum dots < 0.8

Stokes efficiency:
The ratio between the energy of the emitted photon and the excitation photon
Energy difference concerned with this shift is lost to lattice vibrations

Trapping efficiency:
The trapping efficiencyy of the light trapped in the collector given by:
n = refractive index of the light emitting medium.

Optical Efficiency:
the fraction incident photons collected by the concentrator

P r e v i o u s

c o n t r i b u t i o n s :

Major contributions were done in three main areas.

Development of Photo luminescent materials
Development of various configuration and designs of LSC either by
simulation or experiments
Materials for back side coating in order to avoid emission losses from
backside
Other than these major contributions research was also done for :
fabrication techniques,
measurement techniques
matrix materials

Development of various confi guration and designs of LSC:

Matrix choice:
PMMA
soft polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) waveguide
Polycarbonates
PMMA/SiO2 hybrids
Acrylic glass

Proposed objectives of our Project:

Measure of spectrum obtained from illumination of the blank PMMA
waveguide and from the dye-filled PMMA waveguide, PL, PMMA,
SiO2, LC-PL-PMMA, LC-PL-PMMA, SiO2 and all samples with photo
initiator.
Effect of different concentrations of photo luminescent material on
light collection efficiency.
Calculated percentage of photons emitted outside the wave guiding
of all samples as a function of the incidence angle (with respect to
the waveguide normal) of the illumination source.
Edge emission spectra of waveguides
Total efficiency of LSC by using various bottom background e.g.
Reflective mirrors, Al sheet, Black surface, white scattering surface
(efficiency is more for scattering)
Degradation kinetics using LC-PL system (no kinetics study was
done for such system)
Effect of photo stability of LSC by introducing LC with silica

 FT-IR, SEM, TEM characterization of LC-PL PMMA/SiO2 nanohybrid

coatings
DSC measurements revealed the increase of Tg values by
increasing nano silica concentration promoting long-term
thermal stability of nano hybrid film.
Use of plasmons as a scattering medium.
Previously it is reported that LC alignment retard the absorption of
perpendicular falling light leading to less absorption events. So
The
is based
on the fact
external diffuser is required. My suggestion
isidea
to use
plasmons
asthat
a the
scattering
light from
absorbing
scattering particles for light, in this way use
of external
diffuser
can metal
nanoparticles (plasmons) can interact
be avoided.
with a dye molecules and increase its
Effects of fabrication and curing method
(Particularly LC-PL PMMA)

radiative transition probabilities, thus

the of
collection
efficiency of
onincrease
stability
samples
luminescent plate

FTIR, SEM, TEM analysis of films before and after checking photo
stability specially in case of SiO2
Addition of Au, Ag nano particles in film and determining the effect
of their shapes on the stability of film.

THANK YOU