Dye-doped polymer nanoparticles for flexible, bulk luminescent solar concentrators

Abstract

Bulk luminescent solar concentrators (LSC) cannot make use of Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) due to necessarily low dye concentrations. In this thesis, we attempt to present a poly-vinylalcohol (PVA) waveguide containing dye-aggregate polystyrene nanospheres that enable FRET at concentrations below that required for the bulk LSC due to dye confinement. In the aqueous state, the maximum achieved energy transfer efficiency of the dye-doped nanoparticles was found to be 8 7% for lwt%/lwt% doping of Coumarin 1 (C1) and Coumarin 6 (C6). In the solid state, however, energy transfer is lost, reducing to 32.8% and 20.1% respectively for the C1(lwt%)/C6(lwt%) and C1(0.5wt%)/C6(lwt/ ) iterations, respectively. Presumably, the dyes leach out of the polystyrene nanospheres and into the PVA waveguide upon water evaporation during drop casting.