Highly efficient indoor/outdoor light harvesting luminescent solar concentrator employing aggregation-induced emissive fluorophore

Abstract

The rapid development of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) is largely attributable to their advantageous features including colorful aesthetics, design flexibility, and their ability to harvest both outdoor (solar) and indoor (light emitting diodes (LD)) light. In this study, we fabricated and characterized a highly efficient LSC containing a newly synthesized pyrrolopyrazine-based aggregation-induced emissive fluorophore (PP1). PP1 comprises a central pyrrolopyrazine stator surrounded by three phenyl rotors proportionally end-capped with electron-donating dimethylamines and electron-accepting cyano moieties. Due to the high photoluminescence quantum yield (75%) of PP1 in polymethyl methacrylate matrix and a large Stokes shift, the fabricated LSCs showed the external photon efficiency (ηext) as high as 5.3% under 1 sun and 8.3% under LED illumination. Additionally, a theoretical model was employed to estimate the ηext of large-area (up to 100 cm length) PP1 LSCs. Photovoltaic measurements under 1 sun revealed that the champion device displayed a power conversion efficiency (ηPCE) of 1.68% with scattering background and 0.95% without scattering background, the highest recorded ηPCE among the aggregation-induced emission based LSCs. While the ηPCE of the same LSC under LED illumination was 1.05% and 0.67% with and without scattering background, respectively. Collectively, this work demonstrates a substantial step forward toward the realization of highly efficient aggregation-induced emissive fluorophores based LSCs, that can be utilized not only as power producing building windows but also as the aesthetically appealing “wireless power suppliers” for uninterrupted functioning of various indoor electronic devices such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) and network sensors.