Over the past years a variety of organic dyes have been extensively employed in fluorescent collectors because of their high absorption coefficients combined with high fluorescence quantum yields. However, they are not photostable and the few dyes with high quantum efficiency emit in the green-yellow spectral region which introduces a severe constraint on the absorption […]

Excitation energy transfer results from the resonance interaction between the electronic transition dipole moments of a donor molecule (D) in the excited state and an acceptor molecule (A) in the ground state (Figure 9.3). It is a near field interaction which occurs during the excitation lifetime of the donor molecule and the electronic excitation energy […]

9.3.1 Introduction Forster Resonance energy transfer (FRET)6’32 is a powerful tool for efficient photon management. An example of such process is photosynthesis which makes use of efficient energy transfer in the antenna system to increase the absorption efficiency of energy conversion. Light is absorbed by chlorophylls and other accessory pigments that surround the reaction centre […]

The performance of the collector is usually assessed by means of optical effi­ciency hopt, equal to the ratio of photon flux! Vwork emitted from the collector and reaching the solar cell and the photon flux Io incident on the collector: Here, we also define the absorption efficiency: and the photon collection efficiency: In terms of […]

Viewed quite generally, the probability r* that light emitted in a volume V at wavelength l is re-absorbed is given by: where ‘ denotes the optical path length of a ray inside the volume, a* is the absorption coefficient at wavelength l, and p(r) describes the probability distribution of emission events inside V. Eqn (9.1) […]

9.2.1 Introduction In contrast to geometric concentrators, the opportunity to change frequency (invariably implemented through absorption and re-emission as lumines­cence) introduces a new degree of freedom which opens up new avenues to enhance the capture of sunlight. The stochastic nature of these processes, however, must be taken fully on board for a satisfactory understanding and […]

LEFTERIS DANOS*ta, THOMAS J. J. MEYERb, PATTAREEYA KITTIDACHACHANc, LIPING FANGa, THOMAS S. PARELa, NAZILA SOLEIMANIa, AND TOMAS MARKVARTa aSolar Energy Laboratory, Engineering Materials, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK; bTeknova Renewable Energy Research Group, Teknova, Gimlemoen 19, 4630, Kristiansand, Norway; cDepartment of Physics, Faculty of Science, KingMongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, […]

Metal nanoparticles have been integrated into many different types of solar cell and photodetectors. In this section we review the experimental results for metal nanoparticles integrated into crystalline (wafer-based), polycrystalline and amorphous silicon solar cells. Nanoparticles deposited onto the front surface of thick, wafer-based silicon solar cells primarily increase photocurrent by reducing reflection. Lim et […]