2026 年 14 巻 4 号 p. 214-222
Optical wireless power transmission (OWPT) requires converting incident light from multiple directions. Photovoltaic devices other than silicon solar cells are expensive, and the wavelength converted by the photovoltaic device must be close to the wavelength of the light source. We previously proposed a fixed concentrating receiver that concentrates incident light from multiple directions. Concentrating receiver allows reducing the area of the photovoltaic device, thereby lowering cost. The previously proposed receiver can concentrate light from multiple directions but suffers from light leakage issues. This study proposes adding liquid-crystal (LC) controlled lightguides to the previously proposed receiver to guide light to a stationary, smallarea power-generating element. Combining a high-refractive-index anisotropic LC with high-refractive-index glass (n=1.9) expands the range of incident angles for light switching to 19 deg. We successfully prototyped voltage-controlled light switching by a total reflection state.
