Extraction of trapped light from luminescent solar concentration

Abstract

In modem light sources such as Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSC's) and Light Emitting Diodes (LED's), light is emitted within a light-guiding structure of high refractive index. Some of this light is trapped, and will not be able to escape. Similar problems are observed when collecting fluorescent radiation in waveguides [I] and scintillation detectors [2]. For lighting applications, this trapped light should be able to escape the light-guiding structure. In LED's this is commonly achieved with a special profile in the active zone. However, in LSC's the small light-emitting zone is remote from the large light collector so a different approach must be taken. This paper will focus on the extraction of emitted light from rectangular LSC's, and propose a way of extracting a large fraction of the trapped light.