Design, manufacture and characterization of compact optics for micro-CPV

Corentin Jouanneau; Marius Denain; Léo Guernion; Thomas Bidaud; Konan Kouame; Maxime Weiss; Artur Turala; David Danovitch; Jean-François Bryche; Maxime Darnon; Gwenaëlle Hamon

doi:10.1051/epjpv/2025015

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2024 Impact factor 1.6

Open Access

EPJ Photovoltaics 16, 27 (2025)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjpv/2025015

Original Article

Design, manufacture and characterization of compact optics for micro-CPV

Corentin Jouanneau¹^,2^*, Marius Denain¹^,2, Léo Guernion¹^,2, Thomas Bidaud¹^,2, Konan Kouame¹^,2, Maxime Weiss¹^,2, Artur Turala¹^,2, David Danovitch¹^,2, Jean-François Bryche¹^,2, Maxime Darnon¹^,2^,3 and Gwenaëlle Hamon¹^,2

¹ Institut Interdisciplinaire d'Innovation Technologique (3iT), Université de Sherbrooke, 3000 Boulevard Université, Sherbrooke, J1K 0A5 Québec, Canada
² Laboratoire Nanotechnologies Nanosystèmes (LN2) − CNRS IRL-3463, Institut Interdisciplinaire d’innovation Technologique, Université de Sherbrooke, 3000 Boulevard Université, Sherbrooke, J1K 0A5 Québec, Canada
³ Laboratoire Hubert Curien, Université de Lyon, UMR CNRS 5516, 42000 St Etienne, France

^* e-mail: corentin.jouanneau@usherbrooke.ca

Received: 14 February 2025
Accepted: 30 April 2025
Published online: 3 June 2025

Abstract

Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) modules are complex, heavy and bulky which hinders the deployment of this technology. Over the past few years, the miniaturization of this technology, called micro-CPV, promises to make more compact and less expensive modules. This article focuses on the design, fabrication and characterization of a 350× single-stage concentrator optic made of PMMA. A matrix of 16 lenses has been produced, and a prototype module has been fabricated and characterized outdoors, achieving an optical efficiency of over 80%.

Key words: Optics / micro-CPV / III-V / multi-junctions solar cell

© C. Jouanneau et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2025

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.