Sunlight collection system with lightguide having solid and fluid components

Patent · Tue May 28 00:00:00 EDT 2019

OSTI ID:1568409

Kozodoy, Peter; Gladden, Christopher; Pavilonis, Michael; Rhodes, Christopher

The system captures and concentrates sunlight for transmission to interior spaces or to a PV system. A solar collector uses arrayed refractive lenses and opposing concave focusing mirrors and a movable coupling sheet forming part of a lightguide. The transparent sheet contains small angled mirrors, where each angled mirror corresponds to a particular set of the lenses/focusing mirrors and is in the focal plane. The lightguide also includes a fluid surrounding the transparent sheet, and lower index cladding layers sandwich the fluid. The sheet is translated within the fluid by an actuator to position the angled mirrors at the focal points of the sunlight for maximum deflection of the sunlight to an edge of the lightguide for extraction to a light transmission system or to a PV system. A position sensor on the sheet provides feedback regarding the position of the angled mirrors relative to the focal points.

• Research Organization: Glint Photonics, Inc., Burlingame, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AR0000332
• Assignee: Glint Photonics, Inc. (Burlingame, CA)
• Patent Number(s): 10,304,983
• Application Number: 15/333,970
• OSTI ID: 1568409
• Resource Relation: Patent File Date: 10/25/2016
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English