Quantum Dot Luminescent Solar Concentrator

QD Concentration (optical density)

Concentration 0.55

Stokes Shift

Emission redshift 70 nm

Matrix Refractive Index

n (host polymer) 1.50

Edge PV Coupling

Collection efficiency 85%

Live Optical Budget

Edge-collected (of absorbed)

0.0%

Re-absorbed / quenched

0.0%

Escape-cone + edge-miss loss

0.0%

Critical angle θc

41.8°

How it works

A luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a transparent slab doped with quantum dots. Sunlight hitting a dot is absorbed and re-emitted, red-shifted, at a random (isotropic) angle. Most re-emitted photons strike the top/bottom face steeper than the critical angle and undergo total internal reflection (TIR), so they zig-zag sideways through the slab like light in an optical fibre until they reach an edge lined with photovoltaic cells:

Critical angle:      θc = arcsin(1 / n)
Trapped fraction:    f_TIR = sqrt(n² − 1) / n   (both faces)
Beer–Lambert:        A = 1 − e^(−α·c·d)   (concentration-dependent absorption)

Two competing loss channels limit real-world efficiency:

Escape-cone loss — a re-emitted photon whose angle to the face normal is smaller than θc leaves the slab directly instead of being trapped. A higher refractive index shrinks θc and traps more light.
Re-absorption / quenching — because a quantum dot's absorption and emission spectra overlap, a trapped photon can be re-absorbed by a second dot before reaching the edge. Each re-absorption event also risks a small non-radiative (heat) loss set by the dots' photoluminescence quantum yield. A larger Stokes shift separates the two spectra and lengthens the average distance a photon survives before this happens — the central design trade-off of real QD-LSC research.

The colour of each sphere shows its state: blue = incoming sunlight, orange = Stokes-shifted, trapped light travelling to an edge. A flash marks its fate: green = collected by the PV strip, red = lost to quenching, grey = lost to escape-cone or edge-miss.

Incoming sunlight Trapped (waveguided) Collected at edge

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