Luminescent Solar Concentrators: An Overview

The Luminescent Solar Concentrator (LSC) offers the possibility of reducing the cost of photovoltaic solar energy conversion through the use of light pipe trapping of luminescence. Three concepts govern the performance of an LSC: light concentration, light pipe trapping of luminescence, and photovoltaic conversion. We present prototype performance data as well as a simple model which predicts the light intensity gain and efficiency from molecular parameters.