Investigation of Photopolymer-based Holographic Optical Elements for Solar Applications

Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore the potential of photopolymer Holographic Optical Elements (HOE) for use in the collection of light from a moving source, such as the sun, and its direction into a fixed detector/convertor for application in solar concentrators. In order to increase the acceptance angle and the wavelength range of operation of the holographic device, low spatial frequency holographic recording was explored. The challenge was to record high diffraction efficiency HOEs at this spatial frequency, since it requires a material with relatively fast monomer diffusion. The acrylamide-based photopolymer developed at the Centre for Industrial and Engineering Optics has been selected, because it has previously shown such diffusion properties. In order to achieve large acceptance angle, the theoretical modelling of the angular and wavelength selectivity of the HOEs was carried out. The theoretical results confirmed that the gratings with just a few hundred lines per mili meter were of most interest in this study because the selectivity is lower

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