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Title: Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators

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.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [2]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1475120
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1545142
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5900-72497
Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308; AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381
Publisher:
IEEE
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
14 SOLAR ENERGY; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; III-V concentrator photovoltaics (PV); luminescent devices; Monte Carlo methods; quantum dots (QDs); tandem PV

Citation Formats

Geisz, John F., Lee, Benjamin G., Needell, David R., Ilic, Ognjen, Bukowsky, Colton R., Nett, Zach, Xu, Lu, He, Junwen, Bauser, Haley, Nuzzo, Ralph G., Alivisatos, A. Paul, and Atwater, Harry A. Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2861751.
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Geisz, John F., Lee, Benjamin G., Needell, David R., Ilic, Ognjen, Bukowsky, Colton R., Nett, Zach, Xu, Lu, He, Junwen, Bauser, Haley, Nuzzo, Ralph G., Alivisatos, A. Paul, & Atwater, Harry A. Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators. United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2861751
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Geisz, John F., Lee, Benjamin G., Needell, David R., Ilic, Ognjen, Bukowsky, Colton R., Nett, Zach, Xu, Lu, He, Junwen, Bauser, Haley, Nuzzo, Ralph G., Alivisatos, A. Paul, and Atwater, Harry A. Fri . "Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators". United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2861751. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1475120.
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@article{osti_1475120,
title = {Design Criteria for Micro-Optical Tandem Luminescent Solar Concentrators},
author = {Geisz, John F. and Lee, Benjamin G. and Needell, David R. and Ilic, Ognjen and Bukowsky, Colton R. and Nett, Zach and Xu, Lu and He, Junwen and Bauser, Haley and Nuzzo, Ralph G. and Alivisatos, A. Paul and Atwater, Harry A.},
abstractNote = {© 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.},
doi = {10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2861751},
journal = {IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics},
number = 6,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Aug 10 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Fri Aug 10 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2861751
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