Re-absorption-free perovskite quantum dots for boosting the efficiency of luminescent solar concentrator

Luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a novel sunlight manager that can collect sunlight around buildings and convert it into electrical energy. Due to their high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs), lead halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) as efficient emitters are being developed for LSC applications. However, the large overlap between absorption and emission spectra inevitably gives rise to the re-absorption, which seriously hinders the improvement of the LSC performance. To improve the optical efficiency, the re-absorption-free Mndoped perovskite QDs have attempted to be integrated into the thiol-ene polymer for LSC applications in this work. Light propagation measurements and Monte Carlo simulations verify that the emission arising from Mn2+ ions dopant is immune from re-absorption. Benefiting from the increased PLQY and suppressed re-absorption, the Mn-doped perovskite QDs based LSCs exhibit excellent performance with an optical efficiency of up to 2.23%, which is significantly higher than that (=1.63%) of the LSC based on the pure CsPbCl3 QDs. After coupling the commercial PV cells, the optimized LSC shows a power conversion efficiency of 0.97% under the standard AM1.5 solar simulator. We anticipate that the Mn-doped perovskite QDs in the thiol-ene polymer as the efficient solar collector may pave the way to alleviate the re-absorption issue for future LSC applications.

Automated summary

Luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a novel device that collects sunlight and converts it into electrical energy. By integrating re-absorption-free Mndoped perovskite quantum dots (QDs) into a thiol-ene polymer, the optical efficiency of LSC has been significantly improved.