Optical design and development of fibre coupled compact solar collectors

The paper describes the design and realisation of optical systems for concentrating the solar light onto an optical fibre. Three different classes of optical system, with increasing surface complexity, were studied. These were collectors with spherical surfaces only, parabolic concentrators and collectors containing aspherical surfaces. This research led to two designs of solar collecting systems for application to the illumination of internal spaces. The first is an original catadiopric configuration made of a single block of quartz coupled to small silica fibres. The second consists of a polymethyl methacrylate aspherical lens and a larger fibre bundle made in plastic.