Inflatable Non-Imaging concentrator photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter perovskite integrated circuit concentrating photovoltaic system

Abstract

A Concentrating PhotoVoltaic (CPV) system employs an inflatable non-imaging CPC concentrator to concentrate sunlight to realize extremely low cost and a synergistically combined photonic crystal waveguide solar spectrum splitter and perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package to realize ultra-high conversion efficiency of solar radiation. The corporation of band gap variable perovskite materials into the integrated circuit solar cell not only reduces the cost and raises the efficiency of the photovoltaic package as the receiver, but also addresses the unstable issue of the perovskite materials through sealing the perovskite materials into package to prevent moisture, reducing the heat generation to low the temperature, and filtering the UV light and channel to other elemental solar made of broader band gap photovoltaic materials.

Claims

1. A Concentrating PhotoVoltaic (CPV) system, comprising: 1) an inflatable non-imaging Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) solar concentrator; 2) a photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter; 3) a perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package; Wherein, the inflatable non-imaging CPC solar concentrator is optically coupled with the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter; the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter is optically coupled with the perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package; when in operation, the incident sunlight is concentrated by the inflatable non-imaging CPC concentrator into the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter; the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter splits the concentrated sunlight into its components and channels them onto the elemental solar cells of the perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package.

2. The photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter of claim 1, is made of hollow core photonic crystal waveguides specified to confine different components of solar spectrum; the photonic crystal waveguides are interpenetrated into a coaxial structure with the inner most hollow core photonic crystal waveguide bending and penetrating through the outer hollow core photonic crystal waveguides in sequence.

3. The perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package of claim 1, is assembled by fabricating different elemental solar cells with different band gapes on a two dimensional substrate.

4. The perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package of claim 1, wherein, some of the elemental solar cells are fabricated with perovskite materials with the matched band gaps to the spliced spectrum components with photon energy from 1.55 to 2.3 eV.

5. The perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package of claim 1, wherein, some of the elemental solar cells are fabricated with photovoltaic materials such as III-V group materials, IV group materials, CIGS, and II-VI group materials, with the matched band gaps to the spliced spectrum components with photon energy from 0.25 to 1.55 eV.

6. The perovskite integrated circuitry solar cell package of claim 1, wherein, some of the elemental solar cells are fabricated with photovoltaic materials such as III-V group materials, IV group materials, CIGS, and II-VI group materials, with the matched band gaps to the spliced spectrum components with photon energy from 1.55 to 4.0 eV.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

[0012] FIG. 1 is a schematic structure of the inflatable non-imaging concentrator photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter integrated circuitry solar cell based CPV system.

[0013] FIG. 2 is the 3D view of the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator with photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter and integrated circuitry solar cell package.

[0014] FIG. 3 is the indication of the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator work principle in concentrating both beam light and diffuse light.

[0015] FIG. 4 is the schematic indication of the work principle of the photonic crystal waveguide solar spectrum splitter.

[0016] FIG. 5 is a schematic indication of the work principle of the integrated circuitry solar cell.

[0017] FIG. 6 is a schematic indication of the structure of the integrated circuitry solar cell.

[0018] FIG. 7 is a schematic indication of the coupling of the spliced solar spectrum components onto the elemental solar cells of the integrated circuitry solar cells.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] Reference will now be made in detail to the present exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.

[0020] Referring to FIG. 1, the sunlight 101 concentrated by the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator of the present invention is coupled into the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter 200, and transmitted by the transmission cable 300, then coupled to the integrated circuitry solar cell packed in the package 400.

[0021] Referring to FIG. 2, the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator 100 is assembled with the receiver package 500 which includes the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter and the integrated circuitry solar cells to form the CPV system of the present invention.

[0022] Referring to FIG. 3, incident sunlight including the beam light I.sub.b and the diffuse light I.sub.d will be concentrated onto the receiver, as long as they fall in the acceptance half-angle θ.sub.c of the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator of the present invention.

[0023] Referring to FIG. 4, the concentrated sunlight 101 coupled into the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter is spliced into its components 201 and outputted to the integrated circuitry solar cells of the present invention.

[0024] Referring to FIG. 5, the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter is constructed with the photonic crystal waveguides 210 specified to confine the different components of the solar spectrum.

[0025] Referring to FIG. 6, the spliced components of the concentrated sunlight are channeled onto the elemental solar cells 22, 24, 26, 28 fabricated with band gap matched photovoltaic materials including perovskite materials with band gaps from 1.55 to 2.3 eV, CIGS materials, III-V group materials, IV group materials, and II-IV group materials with band gaps 0.25-1.55 eV and 2.3-4.0 eV, which are fabricated on the 2D substrate 12 and connected with interconnects 32 to output power to the power electronic circuit 42 for optimized total power output.

[0026] Referring to FIG. 7, the spliced components 62 are channeled onto the band gap matched elemental solar cells 26, 28 fabricated on the substrate 12 by the photonic crystal waveguides 52 which are the extension of the photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter, all elemental solar cells are connected with the interconnects 32 and then connected to the power electronic circuit 42.

[0027] In the present invention, the selection of band gap matched materials is focused on perovskite materials to address the issues of non-stability of this type of materials and take advantage of the low cost and high efficiency. But the other band gap matched materials such as III-V group materials and CIGS are also selected to convert the components such as UV to enhance the overall conversion efficiency of the integrated circuitry solar cells.

[0028] From the description above, a number of advantages of the inflatable non-imaging concentrator photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter perovskite integrated circuit concentrating photovoltaic system become evident. The adoption of the inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator enables large scale condensation of solar radiation and realizes the extremely low cost of CPV system. The employment of the synergistically combination of photonic crystal solar spectrum splitter and the integrated circuitry solar cells provides a new approach to realize ultra-high conversion efficiency of photovoltaic technologies. The incorporation of the perovskite solar cells into the integrated circuitry solar cells not only effectively addresses the non-stability, but also significantly reduces the cost and effectively raise the efficiency of the integrated circuitry receiver of the CPV system of the present invention.

[0029] In the preceding specification, various preferred embodiments have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will, however, be evident that various other modifications and changes may be made thereto, and additional embodiments may be implemented, without departing from the broader scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. The specification and drawings are accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense.

[0030] Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.