Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Modelling and experimental analysis of the angular distribution of the emitted light from the edge of luminescent solar concentrators
AU - Parel, Thomas S.
AU - Pistolas, Christos
AU - Danos, Lefteris
AU - Markvart, Tomas
PY - 2015/4
Y1 - 2015/4
N2 - Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have the potential to provide cheap solar electricity by significantly reducing the solar cell area. However, these devices are still at the research level and several aspects of their behaviour need investigation in order to improve efficiencies. Understanding how light is absorbed/emitted and concentrated to the edge of LSCs is required to design a high efficiency device as well as identifying and overcoming the various losses present. One strategy for investigating the photon absorption and transport in LSCs as well as pinpointing the sources of losses in these devices is to look at the luminescence escaping the LSC as a function of angle. This paper presents a new model that reveals the main features of the angular distribution of light escaping a LSC edge. We compare this model with experimental measurements and provide an assessment of non-ideal losses and identify which emission angles are affected most by these losses. We investigated experimentally the effects of the absorption profile of the chromophores and re-absorption on the photon flux travelling at different angles. The effect of back surface reflectors, commonly used to ‘recycle lost photons’, on the edge emission of LSCs has also been investigated in this work.
AB - Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have the potential to provide cheap solar electricity by significantly reducing the solar cell area. However, these devices are still at the research level and several aspects of their behaviour need investigation in order to improve efficiencies. Understanding how light is absorbed/emitted and concentrated to the edge of LSCs is required to design a high efficiency device as well as identifying and overcoming the various losses present. One strategy for investigating the photon absorption and transport in LSCs as well as pinpointing the sources of losses in these devices is to look at the luminescence escaping the LSC as a function of angle. This paper presents a new model that reveals the main features of the angular distribution of light escaping a LSC edge. We compare this model with experimental measurements and provide an assessment of non-ideal losses and identify which emission angles are affected most by these losses. We investigated experimentally the effects of the absorption profile of the chromophores and re-absorption on the photon flux travelling at different angles. The effect of back surface reflectors, commonly used to ‘recycle lost photons’, on the edge emission of LSCs has also been investigated in this work.
KW - Luminescent solar concentrators
KW - Angle resolved emission
KW - Re-absorption
KW - Solar cells
U2 - 10.1016/j.optmat.2015.02.011
DO - 10.1016/j.optmat.2015.02.011
M3 - Journal article
VL - 42
SP - 532
EP - 537
JO - Optical Materials
JF - Optical Materials
SN - 1873-1252
ER -