Highly Soluble Copper(I)-Iodide Cluster-Based Hybrids for High-Efficiency Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are promising large-scale sunlight collectors for photovoltaics due to their affordability and suitability for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs). However, the low photoluminescent efficiency, narrow Stokes shift, and poor processability of most luminescent materials restrain the performance of the fabricated transparent LSCs. This work reports a copper-iodide (Cu-I) cluster-based luminescent hybrid for high-performance LSCs. This C114H103Cu4I4N2O2P6 (abbreviated as CuI-1) hybrid with the ethoxy solubilizing groups shows a significant Stokes shift of 219 nm, high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 97.9%, and excellent solubility in polar organic solvents. We fabricated the transparent CuI-1/PVP-based LSCs via facile doctor blade coating, which achieves a eta opt of 5.89% and a eta PCE of 3.04%. In addition, we developed a series of Cu-I cluster hybrids by ligand modification for LSCs, which all display excellent optical properties for LSCs. Our results show the potential of Cu-I cluster-based hybrids for high-performance LSCs in BIPV systems.