Synthesis of sensitizers containing donor cascade of triarylamine and dimethylarylamine moieties for dye-sensitized solar cells

Four triarylamine derivatives (XS6–9) containing N,N-dimethylaryl amine units as secondary electron-donating groups are designed and synthesized. These dyes were applied into nanocrystalline TiO2 dye-sensitized solar cells through standard operations. For a typical device the maximal monochromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) can reach 93%, with a short-circuit photocurrent density (Jsc) 10.8 mA cm−2, an open-circuit photovoltage (Voc) 690 mV, and fill factor (FF) 0.61, which corresponds to an overall conversion efficiency of 4.54%.