Solar concentrators filled with liquid for enhancement of photocurrent generation and angular responses of light incidence

Abstract

Design and manufacturing of solar concentrator materials and structures for external light trapping have been widely explored for decades to enhance solar cell performances in various photovoltaic (PV) devices such as silicon, organic, and perovskite ones. Among them, remarkable progress in development of the concentrators has been made to improve the solar concentration ratio of power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, only some studies were carried out to enhance the angular responses of light incidence (AOI). This paper reports a simple liquid-filled solar concentrator (LFSC) that can be effectively implemented by incorporating optical reflection with total internal refraction (TIR). Using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method in the 3D printing process, the hollow compound concentrators in a parabolic shape were efficiently produced at a low cost. With liquid water and silicone oil, the simulation and experimental results illustrated that the PCE and AOI were increased for the concentrator solar cells composed of bulk heterojunction structure. In particular, it was found that all the AOI exhibited an exponential decay as a Gaussian distribution. Hence, it provided the capability of control over concentrator material and geometry in design and fabrication. In this manner, various such simple devices fabricated by the present method can be further applied in future applications such as PV cell modules and systems.