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Single stage transmission type broadband solar concentrator

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Abstract

In this paper, a single stage solar cell concentrator is designed and discussed. The proposed concentrator consists of refraction prisms and total internal reflection prisms in the inner and outer areas, respectively. In order to compensate for dispersion, all odd zones gather the light onto the –D position, while all even zones gather the light onto the + D position. Finally, the hybrid concentrator achieves optical efficiency of 89.8% for normally incident light without an antireflection coating. An acceptance angle of ± 0.78° at 1dB loss is achieved without using additional secondary optics. In addition, the fabrication tolerance is also analyzed.

©2010 Optical Society of America

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Figures (6)

Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the proposed solar concentrator. The inner and outer areas of the concentrator are formed by refraction and TIR prisms, respectively.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2 (a) Deflected angle ϕ as a function of the prism angle θ, where the black and red lines correspond to: the (b) refraction prism; and (c) TIR prism, respectively.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3 Irradiance distribution at the solar cell position when the light is focused on the + D position and the index of the prism is (a) n = 1.48, (b) n = 1.49 and (c) n = 1.5. When the light is focused on the –D position, the irradiance distributions for (d) n = 1.48, (e) n = 1.49 and (f) n = 1.5 are also shown. When the light is focused on the + D position with a donut-shaped distribution as shown in 3(b), the light is over-focused or blurred for lower and higher indices, respectively. On the contrary, when the light is focused on the –D position with a donut-shaped distribution as shown in 3(e), the light is blurred or over-focused for lower and higher indices, respectively.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Irradiance distributions at the solar cell position for the absorption spectral range of (a) InGaP layer (400nm~700nm), (b) InGaAs layer (700nm~900nm), and (c) Ge layer (900nm~1600) when the odd zones gather the light on to the + D position and the even zones gather the light on to the –D position.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Acceptance angle of the proposed concentrator. The black solid line indicates the overall efficiency. The red, green and blue dashed lines indicate the optical efficiency for InGaP, InGaAs and Ge layers, respectively. The input solar light is assumed to be AM1.5. α90%, of the overall efficiency is ± 0.78°.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Optical efficiency as a function of the fabrication error, Δθ. The black color indicates the overall optical efficiency. The red, green and blue colors indicate the optical efficiencies for the InGaP, InGaAs and Ge layers, respectively.

Tables (1)

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Table 1 Specifications of Concentric Prisms

Equations (4)

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n sin θ = sin ( ϕ + θ ) ,
n sin ( 2 θ 90 o ) = sin ( 90 o ϕ ) ,
n 2 ( λ ) = A 1 + A 2 λ 2 + A 3 λ 2 + A 4 λ 4 + ,
p ( x ) = 1 2 π σ 2 exp ( x 2 2 σ 2 )  ,  σ = Δ θ
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