Experimental and theoretical study of luminescent solar concentrators based on vertically stacked arrays of optical fibers

In this study, the performance of luminescent solar concentrators using dye-doped POFs stacked in layers is theoretically and experimentally studied. Two setups having different illuminated lengths and different arrangements of the dyes in the layers have been manufactured using the dyes Lumogen Yellow and Lumogen Red at a concentration of 500 ppm. The analyses include the effect of the number of layers, of the order of the dyes in each layer and of the illumination length on performance parameters such as the external photon efficiency from each layer, the achievable output power and the spectral distribution of the output emission. It is found that the output power is close to the highest one when at least two of the layers are doped with Lumogen Red. The measured total power emitted from one of the ends of a promising setup of 46 POFs arranged in 4 layers when a length of only 31 cm is illuminated under sunlight has been 6.1 mW. The qualitative behaviors of the experimentally-measured performance parameters are well described by the theoretical Monte-Carlo calculations.