Journal article

Highly Efficient Luminescent Solar Concentrators by Selective Alignment of Donor-Emitter Fluorophores

Bolong Zhang, Can Gao, Hamid Soleimaninejad, Jonathan M White, Trevor A Smith, David J Jones, Kenneth P Ghiggino, Wallace WH Wong

CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS | AMER CHEMICAL SOC | Published : 2019

Abstract

Vertically aligning fluorophores to the surface of a waveguide is known to be an effective approach to improve the optical quantum efficiency (OQE) of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs). While the chromophore alignment assists waveguiding of the emitted photons to the LSC edges, it also significantly reduces the light-harvesting properties of the LSC. We report here a fluorophore pair consisting of a sphere-shaped energy donor and a rod-shaped emitter that was incorporated in LSCs to provide selective fluorophore alignment to address the reduced incident-light absorption issue. A liquid-crystal polymer matrix was used to perpendicularly align the rod-shaped acceptors to a favorable orien..

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Grants

Awarded by ARC Future Fellowship


Awarded by ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science


Funding Acknowledgements

This work was made possible by support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency which funds the project grants within the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP). W.W.H.W. was supported by an ARC Future Fellowship (FT130100500). T.A.S., K.P.G., and W.W.H.W. are also supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science (CE170100026). The authors are also thankful to Dr Yasuhiro Kuwana, DIC Corporation, for providing the liquid crystal polymer matrix for this study.