Luminescent Solar Concentrator Waveguide Encoded Lattice (LWELs)

The principal objective of this project is to design and fabricate optically functional, slim, flexible, dielectric coatings – luminescent wavelength encoded lattices (LWELs) – that enhance sunlight harvesting and therefore, within the short term, have a measurable, significant impact on the efficiency of commercially available solar cells. LWELs will combine two powerful approaches to incandescent light-collection: (i) lumophores that convert ultraviolet light – normally wasted as dissipated heat – into visible wavelengths that can activate the photovoltaic cell and (ii) dense, complex 3-D polymer waveguide architectures that impart near-hemispherical fields of view (FOV), enabling efficient light collection despite the diurnal solar trajectory. This is fundamentally different from typical solar cell configurations, which are efficient only when the Sun is incident along the surface normal and therefore must be physically rotated to track the Sun across the sky.

Faculty Supervisor:

Kalaichelvi Saravanamuttu

Student:

Partner:

University of Cambridge

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Education

University:

McMaster University

Program: