Luminescent Solar Concentrators Based on Lanthanide Bimetallic Red-Emitting Metal-Organic Framework

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Renewable Energy
• Photovoltaics

Background:

• Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are promising for building-integrated photovoltaics.
• LSC performance heavily relies on luminescent materials for efficiency and stability.
• Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer high luminescence, stability, and facile synthesis for LSC applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize and evaluate a novel red-emitting MOF, SCU-UEu-2, for LSC applications.
• To demonstrate the potential of MOF-based materials in high-performance LSCs.
• To address the limited exploration of MOFs in LSC devices.

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of a red-emitting MOF (SCU-UEu-2) with high yield and scalability.
• Characterization of SCU-UEu-2's optical properties, including excitation/emission spectra and photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY).
• Fabrication and evaluation of an LSC device incorporating SCU-UEu-2 under simulated sunlight.

Main Results:

• SCU-UEu-2 exhibits a broad excitation range and narrow emission bandwidth, minimizing reabsorption losses.
• The synthesized MOF achieved a high photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY) of 90.28%.
• The LSC device demonstrated a maximum optical conversion efficiency (ηopt) of 9.9% under 100 mW·cm^-2 illumination.

Conclusions:

• SCU-UEu-2 is a highly efficient and stable red-emitting MOF suitable for LSC applications.
• MOF-based luminescent materials show significant potential for advancing high-performance LSCs.
• The developed MOF offers advantages over traditional materials like quantum dots for LSC devices.