Luminescent Solar Concentrators – The Solar Waveguides

This study aims at giving a prologue to the non-tracking, concentrating solar waveguides called luminescent solar concentrators. It deliberates the major factors of loss in such systems that limit photon collection and conversion efficiency. Identifying fluorescent molecules possessing a larger Stokes shift value with a broad degree of absorption in the UV-Vis continuum, with sharper and narrower near infra-red emission spectra at a higher quantum yield that achieves a perpetual total internal reflection, remains a challenge now. Geometrical and material properties also play a strategic role in accomplishing waveguides, with minimal loss, through total internal reflection of trapped photons for photovoltaic conversion.