Patent ID: 8707736

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a glass concentrator for a solar module, the method comprising: providing a glass material in a molten state; processing the glass material in the molten state to form a ribbon glass including a first surface and a second surface; and subjecting the first surface to one or more drum members to form a plurality of concentrating structures while continuously passing the ribbon glass via the second surface over a plurality of rollers, each of the concentrating structures including an aperture region, an exit region, and one or more reflection regions, the reflection region configured to receive incoming light and the one or more reflection regions configured to concentrate the received incoming light to the exit region, the exit region being smaller in area than the aperture region: and cutting the ribbon glass into one or more sheets of glasses, each sheet of glass including a predetermined number of the plurality of concentrating structures and being a soda lime glass composition; wherein each concentrating structure can be disposed physically one-next-to-another on the first surface in a first direction, the first direction being parallel to passing direction of the ribbon glass; wherein each of the concentrating structure can be elongated along a second direction, the second direction being substantially perpendicular to the first direction; using at least one sheet of glass including the predetermined number of the plurality of concentrating structures for the solar module; wherein each of the concentrating structures is characterized as an elongated truncated pyramid structure comprising: a bottom base with a first area is the aperture region; a top base with a second area is the exit region, the second area being one half or smaller than the first area; and two side regions are the reflection regions, the two side regions respectively connecting one side of the exit region with one side of the aperture region and another side of the exit region with another side of the aperture region; wherein each of the concentrating structures is characterized by a geometric concentration characteristic with an aperture to exit ratio in a range from about 1.8 to about 4.5; and wherein each of the concentrating structures is characterized by an RMS roughness less than 30 nm.