Ultrahighly-efficient and stable luminescent solar concentrators enabled by FRET-based carbon nanodots
Jiurong Li, Shuyang Zheng, Xiujian Zhao, Alberto Vomiero, Xiao Gong
Abstract
Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) as an optical device to concentrate light from large areas illuminated by sunlight into small-area photovoltaic cells, can greatly reduce the cost of solar energy generation, thus showing promise in building-integrated photovoltaics. Here, we report the synthesis of a novel type of composite nanoparticle via the simple sol-gel method. Starting from hydroxyl-rich carbon nanodots (CDs), Rhodamine B (RhB) molecules were embedded into a silica matrix shell, forming a composite core-shell system, where the CDs represent the core and RhB embedded in SiO 2 are the shell of the final CDs/RhB@SiO 2 structure. These nanoparticles were successfully employed in high-performance LSC fabrication. The Förster resonant energy transfer (FRET) between the CDs and the dye was successfully exploited to improve the light absorption efficiency and power conversion efficiency ( η PCE ) of LSC devices. The solid-state photoluminescence quantum yield of the as-synthesized composite nanoparticles can reach ∼ 57 % due to the effective suppression of the aggregation-induced quenching. These fluorescent composite nanoparticles were used for fabricating LSC devices with an ultrahigh η PCE of ∼ 3.8 % for 5 × 5 cm 2 devices, thanks to the high loading of luminophores and effective FRET. • Synthesis of novel composite nanoparticle via the simple sol-gel method. • Core-shell nanoparticles composed of carbon dots (CDs) surrounded by Rhodamine B (RhB)-embedded silica matrix (CDs/RhB@SiO 2 ). • FRET between CDs and RhB dyes exploited. • Quantum yield of CDs/RhB@SiO 2 as high as 57 %. • High efficiency of the LSC devices (5 × 5 cm 2 area) ∼ 3.8 %.