Patent ID: 7603003

Claim:
A light concentrator, comprising: at least one core; at least one adjacent material that has a lower index of refraction than the core and that is in contact with at least a portion of a surface of the core; a plurality of nanostructures, wherein the nanostructures absorb light impinging on a surface of the concentrator and emit light, and wherein the nanostructures are located or orientated within the concentrator such that the fraction of the light emitted by the nanostructures that is waveguided by the at least one core is greater than ½*(cos(asin(n 1 /n 2 ))−cos(pi−asin(n 1 /n 2 ))), where n 1 is the refractive index of the adjacent material and n 2 is the refractive index of the core; and, at least one collector which collects the waveguided light, the collector being operably connected to the core.