Novel crosslinked host matrices based on fluorinated polymers for long-term durability in thin-film luminescent solar concentrators

Polymer-based thin-film luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) currently rely on poly(methyl-methacrylate) (PMMA) as host matrix material. However, PMMA-based LSCs still suffer from degradation due to the limited photostability of the polymer. In this work, a new crosslinked fluoropolymer-based system is presented as a potential alternative host matrix material for the fabrication of durable polymer-based LSC devices. The new host matrix system is obtained by crosslinking a functional chloro-trifluoro-ethylene-vinyl-ether copolymer with an aliphatic isocyanurate crosslinker. It is shown that efficiency values comparable to those obtained with optimized PMMA-based thin film LSC devices can be reached with the new crosslinked fluoropolymer-based LSC system. In addition, superior long-term operational stability compared to PMMA-based devices can be obtained with the new fluoropolymer-based host matrix, as evidenced by long-term continuous light exposure tests (over 500 h) on operating LSC devices. The results of this work demonstrate that crosslinked fluorinated polymers represent a class of promising host matrix materials to achieve environmentally stable LSC devices. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.