Optimizing Light-Harvesting Efficiency of Sustainable Luminescent Solar Concentrators Based on Organosilane-Functionalized Carbon Nanodots

Maria Jessabel Talite^1*, H. Y. Huang², W. C. Chou¹, C. T. Yuan²

¹Electrophysics, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
²Physics, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

* Presenter:Maria Jessabel Talite, email:jessatalite@gmail.com

Enormous amount of research works have been performed to attain interminable advancement in empowering solar energy harvesting which employs luminescent materials in window-type concentrators. Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are extensively known for the utilization of solar irradiation, mutually harvesting incident and diffused sunlight without the requirement of complex solar tracking system. It offers utmost advantage for building-integrated photovoltaics by simply integrating transparent LSCs as solar-harvesting devices into building facades with conventional solar cells in the form of photovoltaic windows. However, most of competent LSCs bank on colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) incorporated with heavy metals and hazardous elements that entail potential threats to human health and environment. Reported herein is a highly efficient, greener LSC with high loading concentrations based on sustainable and cost-effective organosilane-functionalized carbon nanodots (Si-CNDs). The fabricated LSCs can preserve high optical quality and film uniformity, thus suppressing scattering losses, leading to solid-state quantum yields (PL-QYs) up to 45 ± 5% after the calibration of the reabsorption losses and high internal quantum efficiency of ∼22%.

Keywords: luminescent solar concentrators, carbon nanodots