Holographic solar concentrator

摘要

A solar concentrator receives sunlight for generating solar power with the concentrator including holographic optical element (HOE) separators for separating sunlight into separated bands, including HOE concentrators for concentrating the separated bands into concentrated bands, including HOE reflectors for reflecting the concentrated bands as reflected bands onto a multiple junction photovoltaic solar cell for generating the solar power with reduced aberrations of the bands for improved conversion of the solar light into the generator solar power, all of which can be constructed in an integrated structure using spacers, waveguides, and a substrate, where the HOEs use chirp Bragg gratings for reducing optical aberrations of the separated, concentrated, and reflected optical bands, with the option of multiple HOE separators for receiving sunlight from various angles of incidence.

主权项

1. A light concentrator for generating power based on received light, the concentrator comprising:
a substrate; a photovoltaic (PV) cell integrally disposed on the substrate; a shield disposed on at least one surface of the PV cell, wherein the shield is disposed on a surface of the PV cell facing the received light, and is configured to block the received light from directly irradiating the PV cell; a holographic diffraction grating-based separator integrally disposed on the substrate and configured to receive the light and to separate a first portion of the received light into separated optical bands and to transmit a second portion of the received light; a multiple holographic diffraction grating-based concentrator integrally disposed on the substrate and configured to receive the separated optical bands from the separator and to concentrate the separated optical bands into concentrated bands and to transmit the second portion of the received light; and a multiple holographic diffraction grating-based reflector integrally disposed on the substrate and configured to receive the separated optical bands from the concentrator and to reflect the concentrated bands as reflected bands to the PV cell and to transmit the second portion of the received light, wherein the PV cell is configured to receive the reflected bands from the reflector and to generate the power based on the reflected bands, the PV cell comprising a multiple junction PV cell having multiple junctions configured to receive the reflected bands, and wherein the substrate is transparent such that the second portion of the received light passes through the substrate as transmitted light, and wherein the PV cell is disposed within a first plane and the reflector is disposed within a second plane parallel to the first plane, the first plane being nearer to a source of the light than is the second plane.