Earth abundant colloidal carbon quantum dots for luminescent solar concentrators

• Published in: Materials advances Vol. 1; no. 2; pp. 119 - 138
• Main Authors: Liu, Guiju, Wang, Xiaohan, Han, Guangting, Yu, Jianyong, Zhao, Haiguang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 26.05.2020
• ISSN: 2633-5409; 2633-5409
• DOI: 10.1039/d0ma00181c

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. We reviewed the synthetic strategies, structure and properties of C-dots, and summarized the recent progress of C-dots based luminescent solar concentrators.