Luminescent Solar Concentrators Based on Energy Transfer from an Aggregation-Induced Emitter Conjugated Polymer

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are solar-harvesting devices fabricated from a transparent waveguide that is doped or coated with lumophores. Despite their potential for architectural integration, the optical efficiency of LSCs is often limited by incomplete harvesting of solar radiation and aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) of lumophores in the solid state. Here, we demonstrate a multilumophore LSC design that circumvents these challenges through a combination of nonradiative Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE). The LSC incorporates a green-emitting poly(tetraphenylethylene), p-O-TPE, as an energy donor and a red-emitting perylene bisimide molecular dye (PDI-Sil) as the energy acceptor, within an organic–inorganic hybrid diureasil waveguide. Steady-state photoluminescence studies demonstrate the diureasil host induced AIE from the p-O-PTE donor polymer, leading to a high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of ∼45% and a large Stokes shift of ∼150 nm....