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Total internal reflection-based planar waveguide solar concentrator with symmetric air prisms as couplers

Peng Xie, Huichuan Lin, Yong Liu, and Baojun Li

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We present a waveguide coupling approach for planar waveguide solar concentrator. In this approach, total internal reflection (TIR)-based symmetric air prisms are used as couplers to increase the coupler reflectivity and to maximize the optical efficiency. The proposed concentrator consists of a line focusing cylindrical lens array over a planar waveguide. The TIR-based couplers are located at the focal line of each lens to couple the focused sunlight into the waveguide. The optical system was modeled and simulated with a commercial ray tracing software (Zemax). Results show that the system used with optimized TIR-based couplers can achieve 70% optical efficiency at 50 × geometrical concentration ratio, resulting in a flux concentration ratio of 35 without additional secondary concentrator. An acceptance angle of ± 7.5° is achieved in the x-z plane due to the use of cylindrical lens array as the primary concentrator.

© 2014 Optical Society of America

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Figures (8)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 A cross-section view of the proposed PWSC system. The incident sunlight concentrated by an array of cylindrical lens is coupled into the planar waveguide by the couplers placed at each focus lines. Then it propagates inside the waveguide by TIR to reach the PV cells on both edges. Inset A shows that the symmetric air prism redirects the focused sunlight into the waveguide by TIR at the waveguide-air prism interface while inset B shows that guided light within waveguide strikes a downstream coupler and escape from the waveguide by second TIR as loss.

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Fig. 2
Fig. 2 Graphical representation of the geometry associated with the parameters used in Eqs. (2)-(4).

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Fig. 3
Fig. 3 (a−c) Effect of waveguide length and thickness on optical efficiency of an F/1.81 lens with 10° coupling angle for three different coupler reflectivities R = 100%, 95%, and 90%. (d) Relationship between the optical efficiency and geometrical concentration ratio for three different coupler reflectivities extracted from the results in (a−c).

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Fig. 4
Fig. 4 The figure shows that the basic angle θB of the symmetric air prism coupler is the sum of the incident angle θI and the marginal ray angle θM in the waveguide. When θB reaches the minimum value θBmin, marginal ray redirects with a small coupling angle, making it strikes the adjacent coupler immediately and escape from the waveguide by second TIR.

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Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Optical efficiency η for three different Cgeo = 25, 50, and 75 versus the basic angle θB of the symmetric air prism.

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Fig. 6
Fig. 6 The simulated optical efficiency at different losses and the corresponding flux concentration ratio as functions of Cgeo.

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Fig. 7
Fig. 7 (a) Normalized optical efficiency for three different W = 90, 130, and 170 μm versus the incident angle in the y-z plane at Cgeo = 50. (b) Optical efficiency for three different coupler widths as a function of Cgeo.

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Fig. 8
Fig. 8 Normalized optical efficiency as a function of the incident angle in the x-z plane at Cgeo = 50. Insets (a−d) show the effect of defocusing on the energy distribution on the focus plane with incident angles of 0° (point a), 5° (point b), 10° (point c), and 15° (point d), respectively.

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Tables (1)

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Table 1 Parameters of the system tested in Zemax

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Equations (7)

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C geo = L 2  H
η d e c o u p l e ( P , Φ ) = ( 1 − 1 C l e n s ) P   tan Φ / 2 H   =       ( 1 − 2 F / # tan θ ) P   tan   Φ / 2 H
η p o t i s i o n ( P , Φ ) =     R ×       η decouple ( P , Φ ) × exp ( − α P / cos Φ )
η t o t a l = ∑ P ∫ Φ η p o t i s i o n ( P , Φ ) ( L − r ) / 2 r ,         P = r , 3 r , 5 r , ⋅       ⋅ ⋅ , L − r
θ I m i n   =     θ C     =       s i n − 1 1 n w
θ B min   =       θ I   min   +     θ M    
  θ M   =  ta n −1  [ tanθ+    1 2 n w F/# ] 
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