Optimized planar micro-optic concentrator design

The structural parameters of a planar micro-optic concentrator are optimized. First, the direct-loss is minimized by altering the relationship between the f-number of the lenslet, the angle of the micro-structure and the ray paths in the planar micro-optic concentrator. Second, the size of the micro-structure is made equal to the mini-blur size of the lenslet in order to reduce the non-direct loss. Last, the f-number and the entrance pupil diameter of the lenslet are determined by the relationships among the f-number, the entrance pupil diameter, the optical efficiency, the acceptance angle and the thickness of the planar micro-optic concentrator from the optical simulation results. For an optimized planar micro-optic concentrator with a 300× concentration, the f-number of the lenslet, the EPD of the lenslet, the angle of the micro-structure and the thickness of the planar micro-optic concentrator are 2.6, 1.49 mm, 120 degrees and 5.97 mm, respectively. For micro-structures 28.95 μm, 51.24 μm and 88.29 μm in size, the half acceptance angles of the planar micro-optic concentrator are 0.115 degrees, 0.275 degrees and 0.55 degrees, respectively, and the optical efficiencies are 81.23%, 71.92% and 50.02%, respectively. (paper)