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Cost Competitive Luminescent solar cells are placed. The use of LSCs
enables large-area solar harvesting
without requiring large-area solar
Solar Concentrators cells. Therefore, expensive but efficient
solar cells can be utilized. By stacking
multiple LSCs with different absorbing
Brandon R. Sutherland1,* layers (and further, using absorption-
optimized solar cells on the edge of
Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) absorb and re-emit solar radiation into each LSC), the overall efficiency can
a waveguide coupled to efficient small-area photovoltaic cells. The cost effi- be further improved. LSCs also benefit
ciency of LSCs scales with collection area and increases with broader solar spec- from semi-transparency, enabling them
trum harvesting. Recently in Nature Photonics, Wu, Li, and Klimov demonstrate to be installed as windows for building-
a tandem stack of two complementary LSCs of area > 230 cm2 based on wave- integrated photovoltaics.
length-separated colloidal quantum dots. A technoeconomic analysis demon-
strates the promise of this approach for reducing the per watt cost of commer-
For LSCs to improve upon the cost effi-
cial photovoltaic systems.
ciency of traditional photovoltaic systems,
The most efficient single-junction solar record-certified efficiencies as high as they must have a large incident area, have
cells are based GaAs, a semiconductor 46.0% have been realized (Fraunhofer minimized reabsorption along the wave-
with excellent optoelectronic proper- ISE, Germany; and Soitec, France). To guided path, and harvest as much of
ties and a near ideal bandgap for increase the economic viability of solar the solar spectrum as possible. Recently,
sunlight harvesting.1 Optimized GaAs energy harvesting, new approaches in Nature Photonics, Wu, Li, and Klimov
photovoltaics (PV) have achieved certi- are needed, particularly those that have developed large-area tandem LSCs
fied power conversion efficiencies as reduce cost with minimal reductions based on wavelength-tunable quantum
high as 28.8% (Alta Devices, USA). The in system efficiency. Solar cells fabri- dots to address each of these three
main downside to GaAs solar cell tech- cated using inexpensive materials and challenges simultaneously.6
nology is the high cost of fabrication,2 methods, such as solution-processed
making them ill-suited for large-scale organic or perovskite photovoltaics, To maximize the amount of the solar
solar energy harvesting, where much typically have reduced power conver- spectrum harvested in an LSC, the design
cheaper crystalline silicon photovol- sion efficiency and stability—a reflec- of the absorber/emitter complex is crit-
taics hold a >90% market share.3 tion of the notoriously persistent cost/ ical. Here, the authors opted to use
Silicon PV itself is still too expensive performance tradeoff in electronic de- colloidal quantum dots (CQDs). CQDs
($1.03 USD per watt DC in fixed-tilt util- vices. Reducing the cost of solar cells are a class of low-cost solution-processed
ity-scale systems)4 to dramatically and through the development of efficient semiconductors that can be spectrally
rapidly disrupt the largely fossil-fuel- and stable new emerging materials is tuned throughout the entire solar spec-
reliant global energy infrastructure. still a grand challenge for the field. trum through the quantum-size effect.7
They are excellent absorbers, with high
Approaches that increase the efficiency An alternative approach to improve absorption coefficients, and strong emit-
of existing solar cells, such as tandem the cost efficiency of solar cells, and ters, with high photoluminescence quan-
configurations and solar concentration, one that utilizes broad-spectrum solar tum yields. These properties make them
generally also come with a non-trivial harvesting and sunlight-concentrating an attractive material for LSCs.
increase in cost. Tandem photovoltaics effects simultaneously, is to use lumi-
use vertically integrated individual nescent solar concentrators (LSCs) in a To realize a tandem LSC, two quantum dot
cells, each tailored to harvest stag- tandem configuration. LSCs, first re- materials that are spectrally separated
gered portions of the solar spectrum. ported in 1976 by Weber and Lambe,5 are required. Ultraviolet-to-visible wave-
Solar concentrators use optics to consist of a transparent matrix material length absorbing CQDs should be used
concentrate sunlight onto the active with embedded inclusions that harvest as the top layer, and then near-infrared
area of a solar cell, increasing the over- sunlight. These inclusions re-emit the
all efficiency due to the logarithmic absorbed sunlight into a waveguided 1Joule,
Cell Press, 50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor,
dependence of cell voltage on short cir- mode via total internal reflection. The Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
cuit current and, by consequence, input re-emitted light propagates toward *Correspondence: bsutherland@cell.com
light intensity. Using these approaches, the edges where efficient small-area https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.02.004

Joule 2, 199–209, February 21, 2018 ª 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc. 203

Figure 1. Operation of a Tandem LSC
The high-energy UV/blue portion of the solar spectrum is absorbed by the top layer. The remaining
sunlight is transmitted onto a second layer that is tailored to harvest a large portion of the
remaining light.
absorbing CQDs should be used to har-
vest a large proportion of the remaining
sunlight transmitted through the top layer
(Figure 1). In both layers, one of the key
design requirements is to have a large
Stokes shift (a wavelength shift between
absorption and emission). Otherwise,
the emitted light from the CQDs would
simply be reabsorbed instead of being
waveguided to the solar cells at the
edge of the concentrator. For the bottom
layer, CQDs based on CuInSe2 with an ab-
sorption onset of 730 nm are used. To in-
crease the photoluminescence efficiency
to 65%–75%, a ZnS shell is grown on the
surface, improving carrier confinement
and reducing non-radiative recombina-
tion. These CQDs possess copper-related
defects that emit at 805 nm, resulting in a
Stokes shift of 0.16 eV. For the top layer,
they have employed CdxZn1-xS CQDs,
also with a ZnS shell, with an absorption
204 Joule 2, 199–209, February 21, 2018
onset at 440 nm. These CQDs are doped
with a luminescent Mn2+ complex that
emits at 600 nm, resulting in a Stokes shift
of 0.75 eV.
When each of these LSCs are scaled to
large areas and combined in tandem,
a complete optical conversion effi-
ciency of 6.4% is achieved. Integration
of these LSCs with spectrally matched
solar cells (such as GaAs for the bottom
layer and GaInP for the top layer) has
the potential to achieve solar-to-electri-
cal power conversion efficiencies of up
to 3.8%. Accelerated aging using a
high-intensity LED predicts stability of
9 and 38 months for the top and
bottom layers, respectively. A per watt
cost analysis of these tandem modules
relative to commercially dominant sili-
con solar cells reveals a potential in-
crease in cost efficiency of 13%, with
maximum savings as high as 34%
predicted through optimized LSC di-
mensions and increased absorption
efficiency. Going forward, the photo-
stability of the CQDs should be investi-
gated and improved (silicon solar
cells themselves have an impressive
30-year lifetime). New methods to
improve the optical properties of the
CQDs while maintaining or increasing
the Stokes shift will further benefit per-
formance and cost efficiency.
This work presents exciting advances
bridged across many scales. This includes
nanocrystal surface engineering to
achieve high Stokes shift near-infrared
CQD absorbers with high PL efficiency,
the scalable fabrication of large-area
LSCs, and a technoeconomic assessment
highlighting commercial prospects. With
LSC technology rapidly advancing and
increasing efforts placed on improving
cost efficiency, the promise for their
adoption in both large-scale and residen-
tial building-integrated energy harvest-
ing is bright.
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semiconductor compounds: InP, InAs, GaAs,
GaP, InGaAs, and InGaAsP (Wiley).
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A Manufacturing Cost Analysis Relevant to
Single- and Dual-Junction Photovoltaic Cells
Fabricated with III-Vs and III-Vs Grown on
Czochralski Silicon. Publication Number:
NREL/PR-6A20-60126.
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https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/
ise/de/documents/publications/studies/
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