Non-self-absorbing materials for Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSC)

The diheptyl-bipyridyl-diol, as a non-self-absorbing fluorescent compound characterized by a large separation between absorption and fluorescence bands, has been incorporated in polyvinyl-butyral film. Steady state luminescence and lifetime were measured. An increase of luminescence intensity by about 34% in the presence of silver nanoparticles was observed. No appreciable changes were found in the corresponding lifetimes. The system is proposed as a potential candidate for increasing the LSC efficiency.