Environmental Effects on the Performance of Quantum Dot Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are all-photonic,semitransparentsolar devices with great potential in the emerging fields of building-integratedphotovoltaics and agrivoltaics. Over the past decade, particularlywith the advent of quantum dot (QD) LSCs, tremendous progress hasbeen made in terms of photovoltaic efficiency and device size by increasingsolar spectral coverage and suppressing reabsorption losses. Despitethese advances in LSC design, the effects of environmental conditionssuch as rain, dust, and dirt deposits, which are ubiquitous in bothurban and agricultural environments, on LSC performance have beenlargely overlooked. Here, we address these issues by systematicallyinvestigating the environmental effects on the solar harvesting andwaveguiding capability of state-of-the-art QD-LSCs, namely, the presenceof airborne pollutants (dust), water droplets, and dried deposits.Our results show that dust is unexpectedly insignificant for the waveguidingof the concentrated luminescence and only reduces the LSC efficiencythrough a shadowing effect when deposited on the outer surface, whiledust accumulation on the inner LSC side increases the output powerdue to backscattering of transmitted sunlight. Water droplets, onthe other hand, do not dim the incident sunlight, but are detrimentalto waveguiding by forming an optical interface with the LSC. Finally,dried deposits, which mimic the evaporation residues of heavy rainor humidity, have the worst effect of all, combining shading and waveguidelosses. These results are relevant for the design of application-specificsurface functionalization/protection strategies real LSC modules.

Automated summary

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have great potential in building-integrated photovoltaics and agrivoltaics. This study systematically investigates the environmental effects of airborne pollutants, water droplets, and dried deposits on the solar harvesting and waveguiding capability of QD-LSCs.