Solar Powered Fiber Laser for Energy Conversion Applications

We demonstrate a solar-powered laser (SPL) that does not rely on any concentrator optics or solar tracking system. We believe that the utility of such “unconcentrated” SPLs has considerably increased for energy conversion applications. The proposed SPL consists of a Nd
³⁺
-doped fiber as an active medium, a liquid sensitizer, and a housing in which the transmittance of the front window is tailored to work as a luminescent solar collector. The very simple structure of the proposed SPL can be mass-produced easily at a low cost. The lasing threshold is 0.07 W/cm
²
(70% of natural sunlight) which is four orders of magnitude smaller than those of conventional SPLs, and the output power at the pumping intensity of 0.1 W/cm
²
is 0.25 mW. The SPL exhibits several lasing peaks between 1095 and 1105 nm.