Lightweight carbon fiber mirrors for solar concentrator applications

Vaidya, Nina, Kelzenberg, Michael, Espinet-Gonzalez, Pilar, Vinogradova, Tatiana, Huang, Jing-Shun, Leclerc, Christophe, Naqavi, Ali, Warmann, Emily C., Pellegrino, Sergio and Atwater, H.A. (2018) Lightweight carbon fiber mirrors for solar concentrator applications. In 2017 IEEE 44th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC). IEEE. 6 pp . (doi:10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366046).

Abstract

Lightweight parabolic mirrors for solar concentrators have been fabricated using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) and a nanometer scale optical surface smoothing technique. The smoothing technique improved the surface roughness of the CFRP surface from ~3 μm root mean square (RMS) for as-cast to ~5 nm RMS after smoothing. The surfaces were then coated with metal, which retained the sub-wavelength surface roughness, to produce a high-quality specular reflector. The mirrors were tested in an 11x geometrical concentrator configuration and achieved an optical efficiency of 78% under an AM0 solar simulator. With further development, lightweight CFRP mirrors will enable dramatic improvements in the specific power, power per unit mass, achievable for concentrated photovoltaics in space.

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Contributors

Author: Nina Vaidya

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