Thin-Film Luminescent Solar Concentrator Based on Intramolecular Charge Transfer Fluorophore and Effect of Polymer Matrix on Device Efficiency

Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) provide a transformative approach to integrating photovoltaics into a built environment. In this paper, we report thin-film LSCs composed of intramolecular charge transfer fluorophore (DACT-II) and discuss the effect of two polymers, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and poly (benzyl methacrylate) (PBzMA) on the performance of large-area LSCs. As observed experimentally, DACT-II with the charge-donating diphenylaminocarbazole and charge-accepting triphenyltriazine moieties shows a large Stokes shift and limited reabsorption losses in both polymers. Our results show that thin-film LSC (10 x 10 x 0.3 cm(3)) with optimized concentration (0.9 wt%) of DACT-II in PBzMA gives better performance than that in the PMMA matrix. In particular, optical conversion efficiency (eta(opt)) and power-conversion efficiency (eta(PCE)) of DACT-II/PBzMA LSC are 2.32% and 0.33%, respectively, almost 1.2 times higher than for DACT-II/PMMA LSC.