CdSe/CdS-poly(cyclohexylethylene) thin film luminescent solar concentrators

Ryan Connell, John Keil, Colin Peterson, Marc A. Hillmyer, Vivian E. Ferry

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Thin film luminescent solar concentrators are promising components of distributed power generation systems for building integrated photovoltaic applications. However, thin film geometries require high luminophore loading fractions to achieve sufficient absorption of sunlight, which, in the case of nanocrystal luminophores, can lead to aggregation and light scattering. In this work, we integrate CdSe/CdS nanocrystals into thin films of poly(cyclohexylethylene) at a range of loading fractions and characterize the composites with a combination of spectroscopic and simulation tools. We find that increased incident sunlight scattering is observed for the increasing luminophore loading fraction, but that the scattering is mostly limited to higher energy sunlight such that visible transmittance and haze of the samples are all greater than 89.7% and less than 8.3%, respectively. We then analyze the refractive index of the composite and show that the increase in loading fraction also affects the propagation of photoluminescence in the film, especially if the refractive index of the film is greater than that of the substrate. These studies show the importance of understanding the optical transport within thin films and provide design criteria to fabricate thin films for future implementation into building integrated photovoltaic applications.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number101123
JournalAPL Materials
Volume7
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank Mayank Puri for CdSe/CdS synthesis and characterization. This work was supported partially by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1553234. Partial support was received from a Discovery grant from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota under Award No. DG-0002-17. We also acknowledge partial support from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (M.L. 2018, Chp. 214, Art. 4, Sec. 02, Subd. 07a). Part of this work was carried out in the College of Science and Engineering Characterization Facility, University of Minnesota, which has received capital funding from the NSF through the UMN MRSEC program under Award No. DMR-1420013. The authors acknowledge the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) at the University of Minnesota for providing resources that contributed to the research results reported within this paper. URL: http://www.msi.umn.edu.

Funding Information:
received from a Discovery grant from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota under Award No. DG-0002-17. We also acknowledge partial support from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (M.L. 2018, Chp. 214, Art. 4, Sec. 02, Subd. 07a). Part of this work was carried out in the College of Science and Engineering Characterization Facility, University of Minnesota, which has received capital funding from the NSF through the UMN MRSEC program under Award No. DMR-1420013. The authors acknowledge the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) at the University of Minnesota for providing resources that contributed to the research results reported within this paper. URL: http://www.msi.umn.edu.

Funding Information:
The authors thank Mayank Puri for CdSe/CdS synthesis and characterization. This work was supported partially by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1553234. Partial support was

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Author(s).

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