Visual Appearance of Nanocrystal-Based Luminescent Solar Concentrators

The luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a promising concept for the integration of photovoltaic (PV) generators into the building envelope. Having the form of semitransparent plates, LSCs offer a high degree of flexibility and can be used as windows or facades, as part of the of building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) industry. Existing performance characterizations of LSC devices focus almost exclusively on electric power generation. However, when used as window components, the transmitted spectrum can alter the color, potentially affecting the visual comfort of the occupants by altering the properties of the sunlight. In this study, eight different state-of-the-art nanocrystals are evaluated as potential candidates for LSC window luminophores, using Monte Carlo simulations. The transparency of each LSC window varies between 90% and 50%, and the color-rendering properties are assessed with respect to the color rendering index (CRI) and the correlated color temperature (CCT). It is found that luminophores with a wide absorption bandwidth in the visible spectrum can maintain a high CRI value (above 85) and CCT values close to the Planckian locus, even for high luminophore concentrations. In contrast, luminophores that only absorb partly in the visible spectrum suffer from color distortion, a situation characterized by low CCT and CRI values, even at high transmittance.