Ray trace modeling to characterize efficiency of unconventional luminescent solar concentrator geometries

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are a promising technology to help integrate solar cells into the built environment, as they are colorful, semi-transparent, and can collect diffuse light. While LSCs have traditionally been cuboidal, in recent years a variety of unconventional geometries have arisen, for example circular, curved, polygonal, wedged, and leaf-shaped designs. These new designs can help reduce optical losses, facilitate incorporation into the built environment or unlock new applications. However, as fabrication of complex geometries can be time- and resource-intensive, the ability to simulate the expected LSC performance prior to production would be highly advantageous. While a variety of softwares exist to model LSCs, they either cannot be applied to unconventional geometries, are not open-source, or are not tractable for most users. Therefore, here we introduce a significant upgrade of the widely-used Monte Carlo ray-trace software pvTrace to include: (i) capability to characterize unconventional geometries and improved relevance to standard measurement configurations; (ii) increased computational efficiency; and (iii) a graphical user interface (GUI) for ease-of-use. We first test these upgrades using devices from the literature, as well as experimental results from in-house fabricated LSCs, with agreement within 1% obtained for the simulated versus measured external photon efficiency. We then demonstrate the broad applicability of pvTrace by simulating 20 different unconventional geometries, including a variety of different shapes and manufacturing techniques. We show that pvTrace can be used to predict meaningful physical phenomena, including enhanced optical efficiency using 3D printed devices. The more versatile and accessible computational workflow afforded by the upgraded pvTrace, coupled with 3D printed prototypes, will enable rapid screening of more intricate LSC architectures, while reducing experimental waste. Our goal is that this accelerates sustainability-driven design in the LSC field, leading to higher optical efficiency or increased utility.