Engineering Highly Emissive Tetra(t-Butyl)rubrene/off-Stoichiometry Thiol-Ene Hybrids Toward Flexible Luminescent...

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are highly valued in transparent photovoltaics for their versatility and adaptability as effective large-area sunlight collectors. However, constructing LSCs as efficient, long-term stable, and easily malleable power-generating units still remains a challenge. Herein, high photostability, high photoluminescence quantum yield (Φ _PL), and Stokes-shifted emission are achieved in tetra(t-butyl)rubrene/off-stoichiometry thiol-ene (TBRb/OSTE) hybrids by incorporating TBRb molecules into OSTE polymers. To demonstrate their potentials in LSCs, a luminescent solar concentrator integrated photovoltaics (LSCIPV) is created using a one-step synthesis that combines the preparation of TBRb/OSTE hybrids, coupling with the silicon solar cell, and the encapsulation of both components. The LSCIPV demonstrates remarkable flexibility and the integration of an ethylene tetrafluoroethylene film contributes to a hydrophobic surface and antireflection effect, resulting in an external photon efficiency (η _ext) of 4.9% and a power conversion efficiency of 1.04% for the 100 cm² device. The LSCIPV exhibits good photostability over 800 h of UV light exposure. Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulations indicate that an optimized TBRb-based LSCIPV can potentially achieve an η _ext of 1.3%, even for a large device with an area of 1 m².