Thermal effect on the efficiency and stability of luminescent solar concentrators based on colloidal quantum dots

Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are large-area sunlight collectors, consisting of a waveguide embedded with fluorophores. LSCs could reduce the use of expensive silicon solar cells, thus decreasing the cost of electricity. Although great efforts have been made for fabricating high efficiency large-area LSCs, there is still a lack of knowledge of the temperature effect on the performance of the LSCs based on colloidal quantum dots (QDs) because the LSCs need to be operated in outdoor conditions. In this work, we investigated the thermal effect on the performance of the LSCs based on colloidal QDs upon sunlight irradiation under different temperatures (10–40 °C). The optical properties (e.g. quantum yield and optical efficiency) of the LSCs are strongly dependent on the operating temperature. With increasing operating temperature, the quantum yield and optical efficiency decrease significantly. Among three types of configuration, the LSC based on thin-film QDs coated on glass has the lowest temperature increase under operation, due to the higher thermal conductivity of the glass compared to the polymer matrix. Considering the real operating conditions of the LSCs, the glass-based LSCs have promising potential for future high-efficiency LSC-PV systems.