Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are large-area sunlight collectors. Efficient LSCs can significantly reduce the cost of photovoltaic (PV) technologies. WU Kaifeng and colleagues at CAS DICP have used ytterbium doped perovskite nanocrystals and shown that absorption of one blue photon by the nanocrystal host led to the emission of two near-infrared photons from the ytterbium dopants. This is a signature of quantum cutting, i.e., cutting one photon into two while conserving the total energy. By incorporating such doped nanocrystals into a polymer matrix, they were able to fabricate the first quantum cutting LSC with the highest ever internal optical efficiency, two-fold higher than previous records.

CAS news release, December 21, 2018