Design and simulation of a secondary solar concentrator constructed with a circular micro prism array for the enhancement of the concentration ratio

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel idea to construct a secondary solar concentrator with a circular micro prism array. Ray tracing software, FRED, is used to evaluate our proposed structure, in which the incident light rays are deflected by total internal reflection and the optical energy is concentrated and collected at the center. For this proposed secondary concentrator, an optical efficiency of 90% is achieved under normal incidence and with anti-reflection (AR) coating, while a high geometric concentration ratio of 93 is reached. When combined with a Fresnel lens, which is used as a primary concentrator, the overall efficiency and concentration ratio can reach 92% and 810, respectively.