High gain, wide field of view concentrator for optical communications

The field of view and gain of optical concentrators used within free space optical communications systems are constrained by conservation of etendue. In this Letter, consideration of the processes in a fluorescent concentrator leads to a simple design strategy for these concentrators for this application. Significantly, because fluorescent concentrators do not conserve etendue, this can lead to concentrators with wider fields of view and higher gains. A model of a fluorescent concentrator containing a quantum dot material suggests that it could have a gain 50 times higher than an etendue conserving concentrator with the same field of view.