Highly Efficient and Broadband Upconversion of NIR Sunlight with Neodymium‐Doped Glass Ceramics

Abstract

Efficient and broadband upconversion of NIR light below the silicon bandgap is a major challenge in silicon photovoltaics. All current approaches use erbium‐based systems being well optimized for monochromatic upconversion. However, to achieve an appreciable increase of photovoltaic efficiency via photon upconversion, broadband operation of the upconversion process is required. Using our comprehensive, experimentally verified rate equation system, we show numerically that neodymium can be a highly efficient broadband upconverter of NIR photons for concentrated sunlight. When embedded into a low phonon ZBLAN‐based glass ceramic, broadband upconversion efficiencies of about 10% can be reached. Moreover, its emission spectrum shifts towards the green spectral range being the optimal range for silicon absorption.

Dual-Phase Glass Ceramic: Structure, Dual-Modal Luminescence, and Temperature Sensing Behaviors

“…However, the scattering of the powder phosphors is serious; the fabrication of monocrystal is extremely time-consuming and complex, and some crystals may not be readily grown as bulk materials owing to the occurrence of phase transformation . As an alternative, transparent glass ceramic (GC) composites have gained wide attention over recent years. − GCs can be fabricated via the simple preparation process of the common glass, which is beneficial to large-scale production, high transparency, a wide range of accessible chemical compositions and fabrication of complex shapes. Importantly, the partition of the active centers into the precipitated crystalline phase by controlling glass crystallization is one of the key factors for the efficient luminescence of GC.…”

“…26 As an alternative, transparent glass ceramic (GC) composites have gained wide attention over the recent years. [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] GCs can be fabricated via the simple preparation process of the common glass, which is beneficial to large-scale production, high transparency, a wide range of accessible chemical compositions and fabrication of complex shapes. Importantly, the partition of the active centers into the precipitated crystalline phase by controlling glass crystallization is one of the key factors for the efficient luminescence of GC.…”

Local Chemistry Engineering in Doped Photonic Glass for Optical Pulse Generation

“…The past decades have witnessed substantial progress in the development and fabrication of active photonic glass [5,6] and various types of efficient gain matrix activated with rare-earth and transition-metal dopants (e.g., Nd 3+ , [7] Er 3+ , [8] Tm 3+ , [9] and Ni 2+ [10,11] ). However, it is still chal-lenging to construct smart glass that has an optical-modulation function, and a few material candidates can realize pulse generation.…”