Triaryl linked donor acceptor dyads for high-performance dye-sensitized solar cells

The effect of changing substituents of organic dyes for their performance on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is examined. These dyes consist of an aromatic amine donor group, a cyanoacrylic acid acceptor group, and a triaryl spacer group, while they are linked together by consecutive palladium catalyzed coupling reactions. These materials exhibit strong charge transfer absorption bands in the UV/vis region. Their redox potential levels were estimated by cyclic voltammetry, and found to suit well to the charge flow in DSSCs. Adding electron-donating substituents on the phenyl groups of aromatic amines increased the electron density on the donor groups, therefore reduced the HOMO/LUMO band gap. These dyes were chemisorbed on the surface of nanocrystalline TiO2, and fabricated into DSSCs through standard operations. For a typical device the maximal monochromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) can reach to 80%, with a short-circuit photocurrent density (Jsc) 16.34 mA cm−2, an open-circuit photovoltage (Voc) 0.68 V, and fill factor (FF) 0.55, which corresponds to an overall conversion efficiency of 6.05%.