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Solar Energy Collectors with Tunable Transmission
Author(s) -
Debije Michael G.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.200902403
Subject(s) - materials science , optoelectronics , usable , absorption (acoustics) , photovoltaic system , homeotropic alignment , optics , reflection (computer programming) , orientation (vector space) , solar energy , fluorescence , liquid crystal , composite material , electrical engineering , physics , geometry , mathematics , world wide web , computer science , programming language , engineering
A new type of “smart” window is proposed that makes use of fluorescent dye guests in a liquid‐crystal host sandwiched between glass panels. The dye absorbs a variable amount of light depending on its orientation, and re‐emits this light, of which a significant fraction is trapped by total internal reflection at the glass–air interface, and becomes concentrated along the edges. Such a device could both generate electricity via an attached photovoltaic as well as allow user control of the amount of transmitted light. By applying a voltage across the cell, absorption could be varied 31%, while the usable light output only varied 11% due to the increased efficiency of light collection at homeotropic dye orientation.