Functionalized organic dyes containing a phenanthroimidazole donor for dye-sensitized solar cell applications

Five functionalized organic dyes (H6-10) containing a phenanthroimidazole unit as an electron donor were synthesized and characterized for use in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) applications. Under standard global AM 1.5 solar conditions, the DSSCs based on dye H6 displayed the best performance, with an incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) exceeding 70% at wavelengths of 400–530 nm, a short-circuit photocurrent density of 10.98 mA cm−2, an open-circuit voltage of 0.68 V, a fill factor of 0.69, and an overall conversion efficiency of 5.12%. This efficiency is ∼94% of that for JK2 cells (5.46%) and ∼72% of that for N719 cells (7.07%) under the same conditions.