Synthesis and characterization of triphenylamine-based organic dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells

We synthesized three organic dyes (DYE 1, DYE 2, and DYE 3) containing triphenylamine (TPA) moieties as electron donors and cyanoacrylic acid moieties as electron acceptors, designed at the molecular level, and developed them for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Among all the dyes, DYE 2 exhibited the highest overall solar-energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 4.06% with a short-circuit photocurrent density of 11.15 mA cm−2, an open-circuit voltage of 0.64 V, and a fill factor of 0.57 under AM 1.5 irradiation with 100 mW cm−2 simulated sunlight. The results indicate that the organic dyes are promising in the development of DSSC.