Issue 2, 2020

Earth abundant colloidal carbon quantum dots for luminescent solar concentrators

Abstract

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) can serve as large-area sunlight collectors, suitable for applications in low-cost optoelectronic devices. The external optical efficiency of LSCs is significantly dependent on the optical properties of the chosen fluorophores. Compared to organic dyes/polymers and inorganic nanocrystals, carbon quantum dots (C-dots) have emerged as a new class of fluorophores in LSCs due to their tunable absorption spectrum, high quantum yield, non-toxicity, environmental friendliness, low-cost and eco-friendly synthetic methods. Major discoveries have been made in this field very recently, while there is a lack of an up-to-date systematic review to summarize the employment of C-dots in LSCs. In this review, we summarized the most recent advances in this field, focusing on the structure-dependent optical properties of C-dots for LSCs. We review various synthetic strategies developed for the synthesis of high-quality C-dots using green precursors and solvents, yielding C-dots with a wide absorption spectrum, large Stokes shift and high quantum yield. We further discuss in detail the relationship between the structure and optical properties of C-dots. We conclude with a detailed account of the latest examples of C-dot applications in the structure and performance of LSCs and give our own perspectives on the remaining key issues and emerging possibilities in the field.

Graphical abstract: Earth abundant colloidal carbon quantum dots for luminescent solar concentrators

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
08 4 2020
Accepted
26 4 2020
First published
27 4 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Mater. Adv., 2020,1, 119-138

Earth abundant colloidal carbon quantum dots for luminescent solar concentrators

G. Liu, X. Wang, G. Han, J. Yu and H. Zhao, Mater. Adv., 2020, 1, 119 DOI: 10.1039/D0MA00181C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements